


I Summon the All-Seeing Eye

by all_possible_worlds



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: (yes that's a thing!), Bad BDSM Etiquette, F/M, Habit Mythos, High Fantasy, Janna is into some kinky shit, Light BDSM, Multi, Mystery Villain, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Porn With Plot, Shameless Smut, Smut, Valar Fucking Morghulis, come for the smut stay for the feels, even Jackie ships Starco?, even Star ships Jarco?, starts with mostly porn will evolve to mostly plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2018-10-17 01:38:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 30
Words: 239,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10583730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_possible_worlds/pseuds/all_possible_worlds
Summary: Star never stopped using Eclipsa's spell to spy on Marco and Jackie's dates. What happens when she catches a show she never expected to see? A cascade of shameful secrets that never shall be told.A love story at its most unconventional. Part erotica and part high-fantasy. A retelling of the later half of Season 2, where nothing is quite the same as it once was, and all goes so very wrong and yet so very right for our heroes. A tale of adventure, of relationships of more than one sort, of magic and its consequences, and, of course, of sex. Lots and lots of sex."I am hope, triumphant. I am will, unbending. I am love, all-conquering!"





	1. [P1] Star, Gazing

**Author's Note:**

> This begins as pure undiluted 200 proof. smut, but for better or worse, plot is in the horizon. As well as even more smut, of course. Expect 100% smut for the first chapter, then something like 50-75% smut for the rest of Part I, and a smut-tastic scene every tree chapters or so for Part II.
> 
> This fanfic is simultaneously published in AO3 on a rough bi-weekly (to, at worst, tri-weekly) schedule. It should be caught up with any other versions of the same fic elsewhere in the Internet.
> 
>  **Extraordinarily obvious disclaimer** : I do not own Star Vs. the Forces of Evil or its characters. They belong to Disney, Disney XD and Daron Nefcy. I made no money from writing this story.
> 
>  **Somewhat obvious warning** : This story represents fictional characters who are canonically 14 (and who must remain canonically 14 to fit the continuity of the referenced episodes) having sexual experiences very much unlike those that 14 year olds normally have or are in any way advised to have. Half of it is based on the experiences of people almost twice as old as the characters, the other half is outright impossible fantasy (and not always just the bits involving actual magic). If you are 14 years old, or otherwise a minor yourself, you frankly shouldn't be reading this. If, despite this site's and my best efforts, you are, please know that almost nothing that happens here (or elsewhere in Internet porn, in general) is a good point of comparison for a healthy teen romantic or sexual life. Stop reading now and get ya self to [Scarleteen](http://www.scarleteen.com/)! 
> 
> Now... with that PSA out of the way, let's get to a dozen or more chapters about what goes in and out of Star Butterfly's pussy!

# Part I: A Story Retold

## Chapter 1: Star, Gazing

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place between _"Running With Scissors"_ (S02E16b) and _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b) - and it was written before _"Just Friends"_ aired.

"Sooo... bored!" cried Star. Her feet propped at the edge of her bed, while the rest of her small frame lay on the ground. Both her hands gripped the wand, pushing forwards and backwards as if she were lazily taking aim to blast the high ceiling. Suddenly, she let both arms fall to her sides with an exasperated and theatrical sigh. "Where are you Marco Diaz?!"

She had been waiting for her best friend to come back from his big important date with Jackie. No, of course she didn't care that Marco was out with Jackie, jeez! He was her friend, she was happy for him. But she was also alone, and bored, and had planned to drag him to a cloudceratops race or something equally exciting as soon as he got back. But he was instead at the stupid boring movies, with stupid awesome Jackie, while she was in her stupid boring room waiting for him to get back. She had thought of calling Ponyhead, or Janna. Hell, she had considered calling Tom. Tom!! But she didn't want to hang out with Tom, or Ponyhead, or Janna. She wanted to hang out with Marco!

As a matter of fact, she wanted to hang out with Marco a whole lot these days. She especially wanted to hang out with Marco on those exact same occasions he decided to go on dates with Jackie. Whatdoyoumeansuspicious?! Nah, it wasn't like that. Was it? It was just that, well, Jackie was cool and all, but it was always going to the movies or skateboarding, or going for a dance. Why did Marco want to go on dates with Jackie so much, when Star could actually take him somewhere really fun? They literally could go anywhere in any dimension. He might have the scissors now, but she knew where things were at. Maybe Marco was bored now too, or maybe Jackie was bored, or maybe they had gotten into a fight and they were both miserable. Or maybe they got attacked by monsters. Oh no!

Well, if they had been attacked by monsters, Star reasoned, then she needed to know. Didn't she? It was for the good of her friends! And is not like Marco would ever find out...

She jumped onto the bed, flipping herself around so that she was now sitting on the bed all boring-like. But that was needed for what she had to do now. She pointed her wand forward. After all, this was for Marco's own good. They had been gone for four hours. The movie should have lasted only two at most. Surely, there was evil afoot.

"I summon the all-seeing eye, to tear a hole into the sky," she could hardly believe she was doing it again. It was wrong. Dark magic under the best of circumstances, and even worse under these circumstances. He was her friend, more than that, her bestie! If he ever found out... no, what was she thinking? She was simply protecting her friend. From monsters! Looking out for him, like friends do. "Reveal to me that which is hidden." Plus, it was either this or calling again, and at least this way didn't leave fifty plus notifications on his phone. So no chance of Marco learning what she was doing, which was important, because, after all, he just shouldn't know, alright? Even if this was all for his own good, even if she was doing nothing wrong. "Unveil to me what is forbidden!"

Dark clouds burst out of her wand and swirled around the middle of her room. Star's heart was beating like crazy. Of course, Star's heart was always beating like crazy. But this wasn't excited-beating, it was more like anxious-beating. Well, worst case it was Jackie and Marco having a great time, and best case it was monsters! Wait, no, she meant the other one, the other way around. Right? If they were having fun, then she ought to be happy for her friend. Besides, is not like she ever thought of Marco that way when they first met, and yet...

The view in the portal became clear, interrupting her thoughts. At first Star could only see Marco's face and torso, he was wearing his usual red hoodie, but the hood was pulled backwards. His cheeks flustered bright red and a few drops of sweat shining on his brow. "Oh Marco, Marco, Marco. Good old Marco, always sooo nervous over nothing at all," thought Star, her frown turning briefly into an amused smile. "You two have been going out for over a month, you can't spend aaaall your life getting nervous around Jackie!" she chuckled.

If anything, he seemed more nervous than he had seemed when she had scryed on them during their first date. When she had been bored at the cemetery and, and... well, she didn't want to re-live that night. The Marco thing was confusing enough on its own, but the last thing she needed right now was beating herself over losing Glossaryck.

Wait, why was Marco still staring ahead with that flustered expression? Why was his mouth hanging open like that? He usually couldn't stop talking when he was nervous, but this was the first time Star saw him freeze like that. Maybe there was something wrong with her spell? Was she doing this to him like when she had caused them to fall from Jackie's skateboard? Or, maybe she had been right all along and they were in trouble!

"Well, Marco, what do you think?" came Jackie's voice from somewhere outside of the viewing window created by Star's vortex spell. Marco seemed to only stutter in response, "eh... uh... well... wow! Those are... I mean... you are... I mean..."

Then it dawned on Star that the wall behind Marco didn't seem like part of the cinema at all. Nor did it look like they were outside. The wall was too close, and there was a shelf there, and two skateboarding posters. Nah. It couldn't be. Right? Could it? Star focused on her spell, tried to zoom out or move it to the side or somehow find Jackie in the picture. When she did, her mouth went just as wide as Marco's.

"Heh, dude, relax," said the platinum blonde girl. Her eyebrow raised in a quizzical look. In her hand, hanging to the side, was a white and green cotton t-shirt. She let it fall to the floor. "If you keep going like that, you are going to make me nervous too," she admonished him with a shrug. But despite her words, her body language spoke of a confidence that Star could only admire. It was not the only thing the princess of Mewni had to admire either. Through the black clouds, she could now see Jackie's exposed upper body, covered only by a matching green bra.

Jackie was hot. Flat stomach and a lean toned body product of a very active lifestyle. Chest that seemed to be astoundingly developed for a fourteen year old. Expertly tossed around hair and big smart eyes. Yet, what really made it work was the way she stood there, straight yet relaxed, looking at Marco with a face that said 'yeah, you bet it is your lucky day'. Few girls Jackie's age were this sexy. Even fewer knew it.

Star's heart-shaped cheeks went bright glowing red. She shouldn't be seeing this. They shouldn't be doing this today. They had said they were just going to the movies. She shouldn't be seeing this. She shouldn't be annoyed that his friend was having a good time. She shouldn't be seeing this. She shouldn't be comparing her body to Jackie's. She shouldn't find the view arousing. She shouldn't be seeing this!

"So, Marco, are you taking that hoodie off?" Jackie asked.

Star was totally going to keep seeing this!

"Yeah, I..." Marco fumbled with the red hoodie. Got a hand out and then back in, tried to pull it while holding on to one of the arms. Jackie laughed again, until Marco, face completely red, managed to pull the hoodie of himself fully and throw it almost violently to the floor. "Done. See! Hoodie gone. Yeah! Told you, no problem."

Jackie only smiled as she slowly walked towards him. Her eyes looking right at Marco's. His own glance focused significantly lower than her's until the skateboarder girl was right in front of his face. "Okay, Marco. But I think you still have at least some catching up to do here," she said playfully as she slid her hands under the boy's grey t-shirt and planted a kiss on his lips.

Star felt very strange watching this. There was the pang of jealousy she didn't want to admit to herself, and the pang of guilt for spying on her friends like that. "It's not spying!" her mind corrected herself, unconvincingly. But there was also an overriding curiosity to see where this would end. A curiosity that only increased as Jackie pulled back from the kiss and began lifting Marco's shirt.

Star had seen older Marco during that brief interdimensional jaunt with Hekapoo. What she saw now shouldn't have possibly compared to those incredible chiseled abs and hot action hero body. However, Marco was still in quite good shape despite her poking fun at him. In fact, due to years of karate and months of monster fighting, he was in rather great shape. Besides, Star thought, there was something different about this time; this was somehow, in a hard to define way, more real than future Marco had been. The context was a lot hotter too, even if it was Jackie and not herself who was actually involved.

"Oh," Star heard Jackie mutter appreciatively as she finished relieving Marco of his t-shirt, and for a moment it was the cool girl that had her mouth open. She composed it into a smile almost immediately. "Well, I am very glad I invited you up."

Then Star realized that Jackie might have never seen Marco shirtless before. Well, not recently. She had to remember they were friends since they were children, which annoyed Star, for some strange reason. But she also remembered that she herself saw Marco shirtless all the time. They shared a bathroom after all, and they often got ready together. She had seen him with only a towel like a million times! So had Janna... for some reason. But this might be a first for Jackie. "Enjoy the view, girl..." she whispered to the empty room, and she truly honestly hoped Jackie did.

"Eh..." Marco seemed a lot more self-conscious than his date about being exposed like this, even if it was only his upper body. "Do you, do you do this often? Invite boys up, I mean?" A split second later, he realized with horror what he had just implied. Star knew him well enough to know his mouth had just been running in automatic, but she wondered if Jackie would understand that. "I mean... I didn't meant..."

Jackie chuckled. "No. First time ever. You?" she asked with an eye twinkle that made it pretty clear she knew the answer.

"No! I mean, yes! I mean no! I mean, first time too. With girls, I mean. Not with boys. I mean, not that I have done it with boys either..." Marco stammered, and Jackie laughed. She pressed her body against Marco's naked torso and leaned in for another kiss. This one much longer and much more passionate than the first. The roundness of her breasts compressed ever so slightly against his slim but toned body. Her hands cupped the seat of his jeans as Marco's awkwardly found their way to the small of her back.

What Star was feeling now was so much more complicated than jealousy. She felt flustered bright red, and her face was literally glowing. Not figurative glowing. Shut-down-the-lights-and-use-it-as-a-lamp glowing. She felt the palms of her hands holding the wand begin to get sweaty. She felt curiosity and excitement overpower her poorly suppressed envy as her eyes were glued to the scene unfolding before her. She felt this was so wrong, in the best possible way. "Uh. Bad girl," she joked aloud, and even she wasn't sure if she meant Jackie or herself.

Marco's hands climbed up Jackie's back, until they reached the clasp of her bra, and after feeling around for just a few moments, they undid it. The girl backed away from the kiss then in surprise, the bra still hanging there, covering her nipples and most of her breasts but flowing down perilously low over them. "Wow, Marco. I certainly wasn't expecting that!" she blurted, with genuine surprise in her expression. "I thought guys usually had trouble with that bit," she chided, seeming both amused and impressed.

Marco was smiling at her. "Well, it is a long story. You wouldn't want to know, believe me," he said, as he ran his left hand through his hair.

"No. Now you have to tell me," Jackie retorted. Her eyes seemed to smile even more than her mouth. "Come on, Marco. Tell me." Her voice lingered in the last word for added emphasis. 

"Well... it's just, this is going to sound really weird..." he began, nervously shifting his posture. "I... practiced."

"You practiced?" she said, sounding confused. Then, after a few moments, "but I thought this was your first time? I mean... not that it is bad if it isn't, dude. I have at least kissed boys before. It is just you just said..." Jackie seemed a bit awkward herself now. Star noted. There was something in her, something petty and childish that drew some measure of satisfaction about the fact the cool girl was not always so cool.

"It is. It definitely is, I promise," Marco hurried himself to reply. "I didn't practice with a girl having them on or anything like that. I kinda. Well... I kinda practiced on Star's bras, from her drawer, put around a chair." Jackie's face seemed only mildly shocked. Star's eyes went wide like saucers. She took a hand off her wand and subconsciously reached to the back of her own bra, feeling the clasp. Had Marco been unhooking it? It was, soooo weird. But at the same time, she didn't mind. No, she realized, she didn't mind at all. Besides, she did weirder things than that. Not underwear related, but surely weirder. She could have helped him with that; as a friend, of course.

"It wasn't a perverted thing, I swear. I wanted to know how to do it. Precisely so I wouldn't fumble like all the guys in the movies or the stories, so I practiced. But now I realize you must think I am a gigantic creep, and I messed everything up again!" ranted Marco, panic rising in his voice making him speak faster and faster.

Until Jackie's roaring laugher interrupted him. "Re-lax, Marco. Yes, it is a bit weird, but not any weirder than the cats, or the truth-or-dare box, or well... the neck guy." They both shuddered and she grinned at him. "Besides, it was pretty hot before the explanation. You were right, I shouldn't have asked," she made a shrugging movement and slid the bra through one arm and then the other, pulled it in one hand, extended her arm outwards and, with a self-assured move, let it fall to the floor. "Well, show me, what else have you practiced?"

Star curled inwardly a little bit. Her joy at learning about Marco's use of her underwear suddenly deflated as she observed the sight before her. It wasn't just that Jackie's assets made her feel insecure by comparison, which they did, and that did not help. They were not only quite the handful for a girl Jackie's age, but super round and super perky, with perfect pink nubs on top. But also, Star couldn't help but notice the way Marco was looking at his date now. Part deer in the headlights, part ravenous wolf. He was completely out of words and completely out of his normal range of expression. His eyes fixated on the girl's breasts, his mouth opening and closing on its own, a bulge in his pants visible even through the magical portal. He looked, entranced, ensorcelled. Star thought to herself that this was a spell Jackie could cast and she couldn't. She wished there was anything that would make Marco look at her like that. Without her noticing, the wand began glowing bright green.

"No, no, no, you don't!" she shouted and the green glow dissipated as she fought to regain self-control. Star wasn't about to let her wand blast her two best friends, ruin their date and, perhaps worst of all, stop the show! As jealous as she was of Jackie, what Star Butterfly wanted more than anything in the world right now was to see her "bestie" in action.

Some part of Star briefly realized something quite interesting in the moments that followed. When it came to dating Jackie, nine times out of ten, Marco was a wreak of insecurities, babbling and fumbling around. However, there were those rare moments when something else seemed to take over him. A cool elegance, a way to move like he was a dancer confidently entering the dance floor. She had seen him do it when he had received Jackie at their home for their first date, and she was seeing it now as he gently guided Jackie into her own bed. His arm holding her back as he slowly lowered her down and placed himself on top of her. The way he smiled at her before going in for a long passionate kiss as he gently placed Jackie's head directly on her pillow. It really seemed like he was leading her into a strange form of slow dance, and for a second it seemed to the Mewni princess like she could hear faint Waltz music in the background. Then whatever part of Star was processing the realization immediately forgot it, as the rest of her took in the view.

"Oh, Marco... you are doing... a-mazing!" Star grinned with barely restrained joy, as her best friend started trailing kisses down Jackie's neck. She was glad for her friend, she really really was. Also, admittedly, she was getting quite into watching him do his thing. The princess' cheeks where literally glowing scarlet now. Where again, literally meant literally. Yes, quite into it, concluded Star to herself. Jackie only let out a soft gasp, but her hands seemed to grasp the bedsheets far more strongly than required. Now Star wondered what it would be like to be in Jackie's place, with the boy's lips pressing and sucking against her own neck. Her hands let go of the wand and she too grasped the edge of the bed.

The portal should have vanished. Her wand should have fallen to the floor. Neither happened. Instead the wand remained floating in mid air, projecting the view before her, and Star didn't care one bit to investigate why. She was not one to question her own magic much when it was working to her advantage, and especially not right now.

"Ah Marco. I am really really glad I asked you out," said Jackie. As the boy lifted his head from her neck, the blond girl took his left hand on her own and calmly placed it against her right breast.

"Oh..." Marco seemed to snap back from whatever trance he was in and Star once again recognized the nervous boy she shared a home with. Which was just as good, since otherwise she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep any composure while watching such an arousing scene. "I, oh... thanks. I am glad too."

"You know, it is better if you play with them. Like this," Jackie took Marco's hand again, stretched out two of his fingers and slowly guided them so that they were describing a circular motion over her nipple. Marco was flustered beyond belief, and as adorable in his own nervous Marco way as he had been hot in his take-charge dancer trance. Jackie kept eye contact with the boy while letting out a very soft satisfied gasp. Damn, Star thought, this girl really was cool. She could understand why Marco liked her. She also really needed to remember that move for, well, reasons.

"Eh, Jackie. How far are we planning on taking this?" Marco asked. Star observed that his hand kept circling right where Jackie had left it, even as Jackie's own hands both came to rest behind the girl's head. Me thinks the gentleman doth protest too much, Star thought.

"Depends, dude. How far you want to take it?" the girl replied, as she lay in bed in what would pass for a perfectly relaxed manner if not for the hardened peaks on her chest.

"Ok, enough. No one has any right to be this cool as a teenager on her first time, in any dimension!" thought Star. At the same time, she was also looking at Marco for a response. She wasn't really sure what she wanted his response to be. Did she want this to end here and now, or to have it continue to its last consequences? Even if that meant her bestie was going to lose his first to someone other than herself? It was barely a whisper when Marco said it, and even softer as Star spoke, exactly at the same time. "All the way?"

Jackie's mouth opened briefly into a small circle shape of surprise as she looked at Marco. Then he started backpedaling, "I... I mean, if you want. Only if you want... sorry... shouldn't have..." Jackie's arms pushed back to the bed and her face rose up to shut up Marco with a deep passionate kiss. Then, with a move that Star almost missed, the skateboarder girl managed to roll both of them around, so that Marco was laying on the bed and she was the one sitting on top of him. "I want to, Marco. All the way sounds great. But lets take our time to get there, ok? I mean, we have all night," she didn't so much wink as, well, twinkle her eyes at him. Marco's face went red and he quietly nodded.

Jackie had started kissing and caressing down Marco's chest. She worked slowly, pausing often to look at him. His face, Star intently noted, alternated between surprise and bliss, and Jackie hadn't even done much yet. Star wondered, with a pang in her chest that felt partly like drinking something too cold too fast, if Marco would react that way to Star doing something like that, or if he did only because it was Jackie Lynn Thomas.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Marco gasped. Star took a moment to notice Jackie's right hand, grasping something in the middle of the boy pants. It looked pretty big. Star noted with surprised glee how the cylindrical shape extended on the fabric well beyond the area around which Jackie's hand was closing. The girl moved up and down the length of it a few times through the fabric and then let it go. Star's face frowned briefly in disappointment as Jackie seemed to go back to kissing Marco's chest. Then, with a swift movement, she unbuttoned Marco's pants and pulled them down, as well as the boxers beneath. It was Star's turn to gasp. Her eyes went wide once more.

"Marco, Marco, Marco... where were you hiding that?" Star noted with astonishment, after composing herself a bit. Well, truly she didn't have many points of comparison. She and Ponyhead had seen pictures, and Marco wasn't as big as the pictures, but he was still a teenager, and the pictures seemed, well, over-optimistic. It just seemed bigger than Star expected it to be. When she had thought about it. Once. Or twice. Well, a few times, but just out of curiosity. Well, plenty of times but curiosity was her thing. "I do not often fantasize about Marco's penis!" Star shouted to the empty room, unconvincingly.

Jackie was handling it with a lot more composure. Literally and figuratively. Her hand was directly around it now and moving very slowly. She was halfway back to a sitting position, as she used her free hand to finish helping the boy beneath her out of his pants and underwear. She was looking at him and, when their eyes met, she gave the flustered boy a broad smile. "Have I mentioned yet that I am really glad I asked you out?" she tossed out casually.

"I... eh. You have. Feeling very exposed now. Awesome. But exposed," he replied. His arms stiff at his sides. Jackie chuckled. Star would have too, if she had been looking at her friend's arms at all, instead of, well, elsewhere on him.

"Marco. I just wish you would relax. You got a girl half naked, on top of you, holding your dong." He seemed to tense even more in her hands at this, but Star wasn't sure if she had just imagined it. "I think you are way past the point where you can mess it up," declared Jackie. Then a mischievous smile seemed to form on her face. "Well, I think I figured a way to help you relax, handsome..."

"Ah... and, how would you do that, eh... Jackie?" his face contorted a bit and then he flashed a strange expression at Jackie that Star was sure was Marco's attempt at a sexy smile. Well, not a bad first try, Marco, I guess. She thought. Jackie's response eye twinkle was a whole other level, though. She let go of Marco's cock.

"Well. I am going to rub your shoulders, like this." She proceeded to do just that, as she leaned over Marco again. "And I am going to kiss you, like this." She proceeded to demonstrate. Then separated her face from Marco's and looked right into his eyes. "And now I am going to go down your chest kissing it again and when I reach the bottom I am going to take your hard cock in my mouth and blow you until you are so relaxed you cannot lift yourself off this bed," she declared in total seriousness.

Marco went bright red all over, eyes seemed about to fall out of his sockets. Figuratively, of course, Star thought, not like Glossaryck's. She dismissed the thought with a quick shudder. Then she looked at Marco babble for a few seconds without hearing much what he was saying. He was way tenser than he had been before and Jackie was laughing once more. She had said the previous line with a completely straight face and even a sultry tone that seemed out of place coming from the high school girl, but was now trying hard to repress her laugh. Star, however, wasn't, "oh, you sneaky girl... hahaha... that was priceless. The look on his face. Awwww poor easily-embarrassed Marco!"

"W... Uh... eh... you, what? I mean... eh..." Then it finally dawned on him. "That's mean! You did that only to see me get even more nervous!"

"What can I say? You are too cute when you are flustered." Marco's face seemed annoyed for a moment. That is, until Jackie clarified, "I am still going to do it, though," at which point he went back to flustered.

Jackie's kisses went lower and lower through Marco's chest and the boy seemed to shiver a little as she did. Star was frozen now. Was Jackie really going to? Well, I mean, of course she was, that was part of this. Marco himself had explained her that whole thing with the bases and is not like she didn't know how it went on Mewni (it was, all in all, pretty similar, there was that whole step with the oils and silk that they seemed to skip on Earth, but in general...). Then Star realized that she was seeing Jackie's lips close around her best friend's cock.

She should have been hurt at the fact that she was losing Marco this way. Or maybe horrified that she was looking at a friend doing this without his knowledge. But Star wasn't either of those things. She was mostly just staring, eyes big as saucers and face glowing so hard you could probably use it to read a book... "Marcoooo." She pulled her hands up from the bed and slowly roamed them through her own chest over her shirt. She was, she decided to admit to herself, after long moments of indecision, very very horny.

Jackie's mouth eased down Marco's shaft and then back up. Slowly at first. Taking in only half length. Then deeper. Then faster. Then slower again. She tried flicking her tongue at the tip. Then breathing on it. Then moving her tongue around as she took it in. Star's mind only half realized what Jackie was doing. She was too focused on taking off her own top and looking at Marco's flustered face, taking in the gasps and moans from her bestie. But she did realize, that Jackie was unsure of what to do, that she was learning what worked by Marco's reactions, that she had never done this before and that she was nervous as hell.

She was a quick learner, and there was no way Marco would notice her small hesitations and some of her sillier attempts while he lay in bed, eyes closed taking in the pleasure. However, Star could see that this was clearly Jackie's first time for anything after this point, and that the girl herself wasn't nearly as relaxed as she pretended to be. None of it mattered, of course. Jackie was doing great. Marco was on Cloud Nine. Well, Star thought, she had been literally on Cloud Nine once and it didn't seem quite that enjoyable, so maybe Cloud Ten or Eleven. Eleventy even!

Star was leaning over the edge of the bed. Left hand playing with her naked chest. Eyes darting from Marco's expressions to Jackie's movements. Her hand had somehow managed to get trapped between her legs, which now pressed it firmly against the middle of her pants. She hadn't planned of touching herself that night until way after Marco returned from his date and everyone had ostensibly gone to sleep, but at this point it wasn't a conscious decision anymore, it was a need. She was sure the images she was now seeing would be burned into her mind for future use as well.

Marco was panting now. Now it was his turn to grasp the blanket and Jackie's movements became faster and faster. "Jackie... you should probably know... I am about to... you know..." The girl took that as her cue to go even faster. Then, Marco seemed to shudder and let out a single additional moan. A moment later, Jackie's eyes went wide with surprise. Not that she hadn't been expecting it, Star thought, she was warned after all. "Which, by the way, was pretty thoughtful. Very Marco," Star thought with some appreciation as she twisted her nipple between her fingers. But nonetheless Jackie was still inexperienced at this whole thing. She gave it the good college try, however. She looked at Marco in the eyes, gulped and then slowly went up to hug the boy laying on her bed.

"Well... how was it?" she seemed hesitant. For a rare moment, Jackie seemed unsure of herself, her cheeks red as well. Marco didn't respond at first and kept his eyes closed, Jackie seemed to start to frown. "I didn't, you know, mess up, right?" She laughed nervously, trying to pass it as a cocky joke.

Marco kissed her. He had lifted himself of the bed and kissed her right on the lips and held it for a long time as the kiss became one of their most passionate. Star looked with approval, somewhat tempered by a slowly rising jealousy now that her hands were back to gripping the bed and her arousal was getting back to reasonable levels. "You so are a good guy, Marco Diaz, you know that, right?" She imagined for a moment having had to do what Jackie just did with Tom, her ex-boyfriend. How would he have reacted? What if she hadn't been as good at it as Jackie seemed to have been?

"You know where my mouth just was, right?" asked Jackie raising an eyebrow as her lips and Marco's became separated.

"I will probably remember that for the rest of my life. So, yeah," Marco said. He smiled at Jackie and ran his fingers through her hair. "Jackie, that was amazing. I have been fantasizing about you doing that to me since, well, since I fantasize about anything, really, and it was still better than I had ever dreamed of..."

Jackie was red. Bright red. Jackie Lynn Thomas, professional cool person, was flustered from cheeks to ears. Marco seemed to notice. His expression became surprised for a moment, then faded into a content smile. If Jackie had intended for him to relax, she had succeeded.

"You know. I wanted to ask, though..." he said innocently, "... that thing previously, the words, the whole 'take your hard cock into my mouth' bit. Where did that come from?"

Jackie went red once again. "Well, it is a long story..." Then, realizing what that sounded like, she smiled and seemed to regain a measure of confidence as she echoed Marco's words, "you wouldn't want to know, believe me."

"Well, you know about the bra thing. Seems only fair," Marco pressed.

"It is from porn, Marco. I just tried my best to come up with a line like the ones I have heard in a porno," Jackie shrugged, but the effect was only partial, she still seemed a bit embarrassed about it.

"You watch porn?" Marco said surprised.

"Who doesn't?" said Star.

"I mean. Nothing bad with that," Marco hastily added. "I watch porn. I just didn't think girls did!"

"Awww, Marco," said Star.

"Well, I do, at least," offered Jackie. "I know sex doesn't really turn out like in pornos... usually," she laughed. "But, well, they are hot to watch."

"Not nearly as hot as what I am seeing now, though," said Marco, his voice a bit deeper for a second as he looked Jackie up and down. He rolled himself to be on top of Jackie once more, which was easier than what she had done, since they had started sideways this time. "I think is only fair now," he paused, "if I return the favor."

Jackie seemed confused for a moment, then she smiled at Marco. "Romance movie?"

"Aw, come on!" Marco complained. "How did you guess?"

"Well, you are still going to do it, right?" said Jackie, smiling at him. Star gasped in anticipation.

Moments later, Marco was pressing his right hand against Jackie's left breast, rubbing around in circular motions as he suckled on her neck and slowly made his way down until reaching the same height with his mouth as well. He was looking Jackie in the eyes as he flicked his tongue a couple of times over her right nipple, then lowered his mouth on it and began some slow motion that Star couldn't see but was all to happy to imagine. The princess hands once more reached for her own chest. "Go get her, tiger!" she said with a bittersweet smile.

Jackie just pulled her head back and began moaning, first rarely and softly, then more and more desperately as Marco's hands and mouth attacked her chest. He alternated sides with his tongue and lips, speed and intensity increasing in tandem with the girl's noises. One hand always focused on the remaining breast while the other one unbuttoned Jackie's pants and caressed her legs. With a grunt, the blond girl began thrusting herself out of her own pants and pulling away her own underwear. "Marco. Get, the fuck, down there already!" she shouted. Star hoped the girl parents weren't home. Fortunately for her, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz had gone away for the weekend, because the Mewni girl was also making no effort to be quiet.

Star pushed her hand into her quickly unbuttoned pants just as Marco lowered himself onto Jackie's pink slit. Wait, did Earth girls not have hair there? Or had Jackie removed it as a fashion choice?

Star didn't get to hold that thought for long. All she could concentrate on now was Marco's face between Jackie's legs, again seemingly moving slower at first then rapidly picking up tempo as Jackie began to thrash around the bed and moan even louder than before. Her naked chest panted furiously and a shiny layer of sweat began to form over her. Star was rubbing herself furiously but she was getting to where they were both going a whole lot slower than Jackie. She was on the hand local and the skater girl was taking the Marco express!

Jackie exploded with a shout into a convulsing orgasm then and the action in the portal stopped, leaving Star at the halfway station. "How was that even possible? Marco was a boy and this was his first time..." thought Star frustrated. There seemed to be no way he could be this good at it. Except. Star cheeks lit in realization, briefly flashing in the shape of two pairs of maracas, "Oooh... dancer mode..."

"Ahh... ahhh... Marco, that was..." Jackie panted, "I never... well, I have, but never like this. Damn, Marco, if I had known we would have started dating ages ago!"

"So..." Marco raised his head from between Jackie's legs were it still rested. "You are basically saying you are only with me for the sex?" he asked, seriously.

Jackie blinked. "Eh... no... I mean, I am with you because you are kind, and brave, and always lift yourself up no matter what. I..." Marco was smiling. Star was laughing to herself, if still a bit bummed she had not been able to finish herself. She had gotten the joke before, but Jackie was realizing just now.

"Heh, you wanted me to say that stuff, right?" Jackie smiled. Marco smiled back.

"Well, if you had said you were with me only for the sex that would also have been good for my ego," he joked.

"Fine, Don Juan, I am in love with you both because you are a great guy and because that tongue of yours is a weapon of mass seduction, happy now?" she smiled broadly at Marco and then giggled as he went once again a hundred percent non-verbal. "Eh, uh, ah..."

"But honestly, Marco," added Jackie. "I only hope this was nearly as good for you as it was for me."

"I... eh... of course it was! It was awesome and you are awesome and... wait? did you say love?" Marco finally caught on. Star's mouth had been hanging open since Jackie's confession.

"I mean..." Jackie started. "Dude, no pressure. I don't need you to say you love me as well. I also don't mean that I think we are soulmates or destined together or anything like that. But, Marco, you are my boyfriend, and you know I like you, and I know you at least have had a crush on me for a while. I think you said once that you wanted to get to know me better, and I am not sure if you know me better yet or not, but I have gotten to know you pretty well these few days, and I like what I see, a lot. So, yeah, for the time being, for now, I am in love with you. Hopefully nothing too scary for either of us, right?"

Marco opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Star opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"I... Jackie, it is not scary," Marco seemed to struggle to explain himself a lot more than his girlfriend had. "Or I mean, rather, it is, but only because I don't want to hurt you. Not that I think I will hurt you. Is just. Well, Jackie, you know I have liked you, a lot, for years. These few weeks have been a dream come true and this we just did is what all my fantasies have been about since I reached puberty. They were all about you Jackie, and they don't compare one bit to the reality. You are the coolest most awesome person I know..." Star frowned, "... and I think I am in love with you too. But there is a chance that I am still too infatuated with you to know for certain that I am in love with you and not just with the idea of dating you. I don't want to tell you that I am in love with you, with you really, until I am absolutely certain that I am. I think I am, just, well, playing it safe... hopefully that's not too bad an answer..."

Jackie smile told Star that it wasn't. The princess herself listened to the whole explanation with some amount of surprise. So, Marco wasn't sure he was in love after all? Maybe he would fall out of love with Jackie, or fall in love with someone else. Nah, no way, he was in love, is just that he didn't want to tell Jackie that unless he was extremely sure about it. He was just being the...

"Safe Kid!" Jackie laughed. "Aww, Marco. I can understand not yet having had enough time to tease apart the fantasy from the reality. Especially this early in the relationship. Maybe it is easier for me, since you weren't my fantasy before." Marco looked crestfallen. Jackie raised and eyebrow. Oh right, kinda hard to complain after she had told him she was in love with him. "That was not a bad answer at all. Especially because now I know, that if and when you say it, you'll really mean it," she smiled at Marco and they stared into each other's eyes for a few moments. Star was feeling left out again, before realizing that she should be left out, she wasn't supposed to be seeing this at all!

"By the way, Safe Kid," Jackie asked after a few moments. "Do you have any condoms around?"

Marco blinked a few times, "... yes." Then got up from the bed and picked his wallet from his pants. A moment later he was back in the bed, holding a strip of five condoms.

"Five?" Jackie asked.

"You can never be too prepared!" Marco answered. "What if we break one while opening it, or it falls behind the bed or..."

"Just fuck already!" Star cried.

Moments later, Star got her wish. Jackie had been jacking Marco back to full length while he again sucked at her breasts and caressed her insides until a finger or two slid slippery and easily into her. Star had begun rubbing herself as well, hand inside her pants, legs pressing against it. She saw the quick movement with which Jackie opened the wrapper and rolled the condom down Marco's length. Again, Star wondered what it would be like to touch Marco's stiff member herself and the thought sent a shiver down her spine. As Jackie lowered herself back onto the bed and Marco positioned himself to enter her, Star wished it was her there instead of the other girl. That it was her wet folds that her friend were about to plunge himself into instead of Jackie's, her body pressed under his strong arms, her legs spreading to grant him entrance. Then, suddenly, she was pushed backwards onto her bed and she felt the first slow but sure thrust enter her.

Star's eyes opened wide. She was laying on her bed, as if an invisible force pinned her there, a force she couldn't fight no matter how much of her strength she put into it. She had her pants on, her underwear too, and yet she felt something enter her through them, something thick and hard going in and out of her. She looked up at the portal, saw Jackie with her arms around Marco's back as he rhythmically thrust into her. She felt the same rhythm pounding against her own cunt, sliding in and out of her with perfect synchronization to what she was seeing through her portal. Her wand was glowing a bright green, bright enough to cover the entirety of Star's vast room.

"Oh no, Marco!" Star didn't meant to do this. This was too much. Seeing it was one thing, but this, this was not right. She heard Jackie moan and she felt her own breath quicken. The thrusts came faster and faster now. She tried to go into herself, to use magic to get her wand back or to cancel the spying spell. Her mind was going crazy, this was too intense, too fast, too wrong. "Oh yes, Marco!!"

Star had stopped fighting it. Her moans mixed with Jackie's and with Marco's grunts. Her friend was reacting to the flesh and blood girl there with him, but for some reason it seemed his movement was in perfect synchrony with Star's as well. She could feel her wetness drenching her underwear as her best friend's ghost dick fucked her to a climax. All three of them riding the same intense roller-coaster. Back outside Jackie's room, a red light illuminated the sky, but in Star's room only green brightness prevailed.

"Jackie, I am going to..." Marco shouted, his voice breaking.

"Me, toooo... Marco!" Jackie shouted. Her legs going around to embrace Marco's body and push it even more firmly towards her own.

"Me three!" exploded star.

Marco collapsed atop Jackie. Sweat drops glistening on his back. Jackie panted below him, her eyes almost rolled back completely into her head.

"That was amazing!" Star was the first to recover. Then realized what had just happened. What she had done. Had she just... used her friend? Her smile turned into a frown and she began pulling herself off the bed. She grabbed her still floating wand with one hand. Her expression was one of anger, red hot anger at herself. This ended now. She shouldn't have done that. Friends didn't do something like that. Well, not without their friend's permission at any rate.

"Marco..." Jackie was still panting under the karate boy, "... this is probably weird timing, but can I ask you a question about Star?"

A pale hand let go of the floating wand.


	2. Old Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone overstays their welcome, harsh words are delivered, the past catches up to our horny heroine (what? I mean the headband thingy! jeez!) and more characters are introduced to complicate an already entangled situation.

## Chapter 2: Old Flame

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place between _"Running With Scissors"_ (S02E16b) and _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b) It also takes place immediately after Chapter 1. This story so far is considered compatible with SvtFoE season 2 events up to that point.

"About Star?" Marco asked surprised, as he rolled himself off his date and onto the bed beside her.

"Well, I mean..." Jackie seemed unsure for a moment. Her cool facade once more slipping away. Star thought the girl maybe hadn't yet fully recovered from the powerful emotions of the afternoon, or from her recent climax. On the other hand, perhaps she was just nervous about broaching this particular topic, whatever it was. But, Star thought, why would Jackie be nervous about something that involved her? And why on Earth or Mewni was she even thinking about that at such a time, when she could be relaxing cuddling with Marco? Because, well, that's what Star would have done. As friends, of course! Besties could cuddle too, right? "It is just, Star is a cool girl, Marco. Heck, she is literally out-of-this-world. You two live together and do everything together..."

Star's hand trembled over the wand, her cheeks glowing bright at the girl's description, both of herself and her relationship with Marco. She could see Marco's puzzled frowning look, though, she new what was coming. She really ought to give them some privacy now. But she couldn't. What was Jackie about to ask? Was she jealous of the time Marco spent with his bestie? And if she was, what would Marco's response be? Star could not imagine Marco not being her bestie, but then again, what would he chose, if the one asking was Jackie Lynn Thomas?

"Jackie, what are you trying to say?" replied Marco, serious but calm. He laid a hand on the girl's shoulder, reassuringly.

"Well, Marco, it's just that a lot of people at the school always assumed you two were, well... a thing," Jackie turned to look at Marco, and Star couldn't help but notice how vulnerable the usually cool girl looked. She imagined she must have not looked too different, alone in her room, her heart half-stopped in anticipation of the oncoming hit. "I assumed that too. You know, before the sleepover thing. So... are you two or have you two ever..."

Star braced herself. Marco was a nice guy, a great guy, and he almost certainly truly loved Jackie, so there was no reason to expect him to do anything but the obvious. Right? He had to reassure his girlfriend. He wouldn't be lying either, Star knew. They had truly never been anything other than friends. She had realized things too late to have it be otherwise. She had no reason to hope Marco would say anything else.

Yet, Star wanted it to be different. Marco had just been inside her, he had just made love to her, even if he didn't know it. Well, he also had made love to Jackie, Star reminded herself. The difference was, with Jackie, he had done so knowingly and intentionally. Star felt a heavy weight in her gut. She ought to yank the wand at once, before she heard something that would punch her like a narwhal blast to the stomach. There was absolutely no way Marco was going to say anything she wanted to hear right now.

"Jackie, Star is one of a kind. She is amazing and every day of hanging with her is a super cool adventure." Star begun to smile. Awww, Marco. She suddenly felt light. Jackie slowly began looking down, away from Marco, and Star could no longer make her face. "She is frustrating at times, but she is brave and cool and, more importantly, a really good person at heart."

Guilt shot through Star's entire body like lighting. A good person? After what she had just done? What kind of good person would ever use someone like she just had? No, Marco was wrong about that at least. She was not a good person.

"Yeah, Star is great, Jackie. As a friend." Star's heart sunk, bruised and constricted. Jackie slowly looked up to Marco again, surprised. Her cheeks still looked a bit flustered, probably from their earlier activities. "She is the best friend I could ever hope for. But in the end that's all there is, we are just friends."

Star's entire body begun to tremble. A tear fell down her left cheek. Of course, Marco, good-friend Marco, was just talking up his bestie, even to his girlfriend. But he still didn't see Star that way, and in the end...

"I don't love Star, Jackie..." Marco finished, and something fragile broke inside the Mewnian princess chest. "...I ...I love you."

Star hit her flying wand with the back of her hand, sending it spiraling against the wall of her room. The green light flickered, the dark clouds exploded all around her, and the image of stupid smiling Jackie, and stupid misleading Marco finally fizzled away. Star knew he had done everything right, he had stood by his girlfriend while not putting down his best friend in the least. And yet, yet she was angry at him, she had wished for something very different, something unreasonable and wrong. But knowing that what you wish for is wrong does not make you wish it any less.

She sat alone in her bed. Marco liked Jackie, and she was just his friend, and she ought to have known that. Instead, she had used magic to spy on him, to insinuate herself in his most intimate moments with the girl he loved, a girl that was most definitely not Star. She had had every chance to stop: when she saw they were alone and beginning to get intimate, when things escalated sexually again and again. She hadn't even ended it right after she inadvertently... she couldn't even think it! She had stayed there, uninvited, until he had to explicitly tell her what was what: 'I don't love Star'.

In her huge dark room. She brought her hands up to bury her face in them, preparing to let herself cry for a while. To let the pain and frustration out, to deal with the confusion between what she knew to be true and what she felt she had just experienced. However, that was not to be, as she was soon interrupted, by the worst possible person.

"Ouch, Starship. I am truly sorry. That really must have been harsh to hear..." spoke a low voice from behind the girl. It sounded sincere enough, concerned even, but that didn't register on the princess' mind at all. She was supposed to be alone in the house.

She jolted awake. Jumped up from her bed and grabbed her wand again, pointing it at the intruder. "Who is that?! Come out or prepare to get narwhaled! Wait... Tom?!"

Her demon ex-boyfriend sat on the window, small flames coming out from the palms of his hands and traveling up the window frame. In the light of her wand, Star could see that he was wearing his usual ripped shorts and pentagram tee. He was looking at her with a sad look in his eyes. Wait! He was looking at her and she was shirtless! In her room! When she was supposed to be alone!

"How long have you been there?!" she yelled indignantly, while she covered her chest with her left arm. Using the right one to keep her wand trained on Tom. "Don't you know it is super rude to spy on people?!"

Tom smiled and raised an eyebrow. Actually, he raised two, but you could only barely see the one in his middle eye when he did that. He waited for Star's mind to process what she had just said.

"Oh...right..." Star lowered her wand and blushed in shame, realizing exactly how hypocritical she was being right now. "How... how much did you see?"

"More than I probably should have," answered Tom with a sad expression. It dawned on Star that Tom liked her, really liked her, and he had just seen herself having... well, magic-proxy-sex with Marco or whatever.

"Mmm. Yeah. Me too," commented Star slowly, lowering her wand. Then paused and they stared at each other in silence. Tom looking dejected and Star covering her chest and withdrawing into herself. She turned her back to him, facing the opposite wall as she stood in the middle of her room. "You still should go away now, Tom..."

"I probably should," he admitted dejectedly. "But, are you sure you want to be alone after that, though?" The demon boy shrugged himself up the window frame. He floated slowly towards Star, a trail of fire following his wake through the room. Carefully, he extended his arms and put his hands on top of Star shoulders and begun massaging her back.

"Star, I know you like Marco. I get it. Any other day I would be firing up in rage over that. But I really can't stand seeing you like this. We had something, Starship, and maybe it is long over now." His hands moved from their positions, a single finger in each tracing a line of flames over Star's skin, stopping just above her mewberty wings. The flames left a red trail, but no real burns. Star shivered, in a good way. That felt pretty good, a little bit of pain followed by a whole lot of soothing heat. "But I'd like to think I can still at least make you feel a little better."

"Oooohhh..." moaned Star appreciatively, and her eyes opened wide as Tom traced the side of her wings with a clawed finger. He wasn't half bad at this, and for a second she wondered why she had ever broken up with the fiend in the first place. Maybe it wasn't so bad that he was around now. Tom wasn't who she had hoped for, but she had to admit, she was glad to not be alone in the house just now.

Five claws danced through her back, leaving a trail of light scratches and flames. It was just barely painful, but in a good way, or perhaps in a deliciously bad way. "Star, what you did just now was pretty bad, we both know that." Tom's words hurt Star more than his claws, and in a less pleasant way.

"Fortunately for you, I know a thing or two about being bad." The demon pulled back on her hair and kissed her neck, nibbling carefully with his pointy teeth, stopping right before piercing the skin. A single claw reached to the front began tracing one-finger flaming circles around the mound of her right breast. Starting far away from the center, but slowly working in a closer and closer spiral. She felt her heartbeat quicken again and a wetness begin to build up in her crotch, one unrelated to the whole seeing eye affair.

Tom's left claw grabbed at her ass through her pants, and she could feel a burning heat going through the fabric. His breath also felt impossibly hot on her neck, in both a literal and figurative sense. "Face it, Starlight. You don't belong with Earth-boy, Jackie does. They are both nice safe kids. But you, you are a rebel, you live for danger, for transgression, you belong with me," he whispered in her ear, commanding and in charge in a way whispers had no business sounding. Guilt trip aside, that voice was so deliciously not safe.

Maybe Tom was right, maybe she did belong with him. And, would that even be that bad? Marco didn't think of her that way, he just thought of her as a friend. Tom desired her, and the way in which he showed it was really turning her on right now. Besides, they had had lots of fun when they dated, he was always so confident and so dangerous. Why was it that they broke up in the first place? The claw reached her nipple and pressed in, with a sharp pointy nail. Star gasped, losing her train of thought.

She felt a claw going into the back of her pants, raking against her buttocks, pressing firm trails of fire and measuredly hurt skin. The hand slid from her pants again and she felt it slap her through the fabric. Why on earth was him spanking her ass making her feel so good right now? It was not usually one of Star's turn ons. At least, she didn't think it was. Was it because right now she wanted to be punished? Because Marco was wrong and she wasn't a good person? Maybe this whole Tom thing wasn't really such a bad idea. Perhaps she had made a mistake breaking up with him, they did have much in common. They were both bad deep down. So, why had she ended things?

Of course, there was the anger thing. That wasn't fun. One second Tom was being great, the next he was exploding in flames and threatening to hurt her. Yeah, that was not a good thing, but she was, well, Star. Her magic was stronger than his even when they had been dating, and she was so much more powerful now. Tom couldn't hurt Star, unless she wanted him to. She felt a bite, on the other side of her neck, deep enough to draw a single drop of blood. Another smack on her ass that left it tender and red through her pants. Oh yes, right now, she wanted him to hurt her. To punish her for what she had just done to her best friend, and to soothe her wounded heart all at the same time.

"You were always more at home in the dark with me," Tom reminded her as his hand reached around to the front of her pants, undoing the button with a literal magic touch. "Just let me show you how much..."

But there was another thing, though. A small voice in Star's head was trying to remind her of something. It was not just the anger management issues. Not just the rage and the fire and the threats. That was the easy part. The hard part was the plotting. The most infuriating thing about Tom Lucitor was how deceptive he could sometimes be. Not so much just that he lied, but that he manipulated, almost by natural reflex. He was always running some kind of mind game or another, not caring who he hurt to get what he wanted.

"No! Stop it," Star demanded and slipped sideways from the demon's embrace. "Tom, I know what you are trying to do," she explained, summoning the last shreds of determination left in her. She had to set things clear, for herself and for him. To stop this all before it went too far. "This is not about making me feel better. This is about you coming on to me when I am vulnerable, and confused. This is you trying to get us to get back together, and you are doing so in a sneaky way!"

Tom paused, the flames dancing around him turning up, eyes glowing red for a second, then he recovered back to a controlled but frustrated expression. "Can't it be both, Star? Can't I want you both to feel better and to be mine?"

"No no no, a million times no. We broke up, for good!" Star answered firmly, but not without some internal regret at not having let the demon prince's seduction scheme play out at least a half an hour longer or so. Her backside, chest and neck ached, but not nearly as much as her nether regions did. But it was not worth it to get tangled with Tom again. "And things like, well, like this, are part of the reason!"

His eyes glowed bright red once more, his claws tightened, fire danced in between them. For a moment Star feared she would have to deal with another Tom tantrum. That would certainly be the shitty cherry on top of this confusing painful night. Then as suddenly as he flared up, he calmed down, and sat on her bed.

"Yeah, ok, guess I get that," he said finally. Then paused for a bit and looked down at the floor. "It sucks to like somebody that doesn't like you back, though, doesn't it, Starship?"

Star sat on her bed, leaving a small token space between herself and him, feeling a lot less worried now. "Yeah. It really does," she answered in a slow monotone.

"Can't even blame you on Marco, you know? He is a great guy to hang out with... pretty good taste in music too," Tom offered. Perhaps his version of an olive branch? There was a brief moment of silence. Star wondered if that was another ploy. It sounded like a sincere concession, but that was the problem with Tom's schemes, they always sounded sincere. "Well, you are right, I should be off now."

Tom took out a tiny bell from his pockets and hit it with an equally tiny hammer. Moments after, an elevator pulled up by a flying demon materialized in flames in front of Star's window.

"Wait, Tom?" Star said hesitatingly. "We are not getting back together, no matter what. But, you know... if you want it... we could, you know. I could do this for you. For old times sake."

"Thanks for the offer Star... but no. At least not today," he extended his arms, and a second later he had floated into the elevator and it had been engulfed in flames. A moment after that, Star was again alone in her room with all her bittersweet thoughts.

She was feeling better now, at least compared to what she felt after listening to Jackie and Marco's last conversation. Tom had actually truly cheered her up a little, whatever his ulterior motives were. And she? She had just offered him pity sex. Wow, Star, you really do mess everything up, she thought to herself.

But, had it been pity sex? Star took off the rest of her clothes, threw a nightie on herself and got into bed. Or had Star been genuinely excited about the idea of a one night stand with Tom? He was hot, literally and figuratively, and he could do things to her that even Marco, if she had him, never would dare do. Things that Star was pretty sure she wanted done to her. But Tom was a package deal, and she didn't want a lot of what came with it.

Forgetting to even cry, Star fell asleep from exhaustion.

\----

Star opened her eyes to find the canopy of her bed missing, replaced by a canopy of green leaves illuminated from behind by the red and purple of a sky under a double sunset. She felt the bright emerald grass against her skin, cushioning her body as it lay there on the open forest. She heard the chirping song of birds she couldn't quite recognize, harmonizing against the background sound of a waterfall she couldn't quite see from her position. From the looks of it, the princess was in a pretty great place, but not on Earth exactly. "Uh. This is weird. Cool, definitely cool... but weird," she told herself aloud, on reflex.

She reached around for her wand. Her eyes opening wide as she failed to find it under her pillow. She failed to find her pillow too, for that matter. "Ok, Star... either you are dreaming, got captured in your sleep, or something very fishy is going on," with that thought, she jumped to her feet. She began making her way out of the trees, towards the sound of the waterfall. Maybe if she could get out of the forest and somehow get a better look at the sky she could figure out if she had been in this dimension before.

Her hands pushed aside a few last branches of a thick bush and then she saw... well... she saw Marco. Except, not usual Marco. Older Marco. Sixteen years older, multi-dimensional adventurer, ripped, bad-ass, hot as all hell Marco. He stood there, bathing in a shallow waterfall, submerged in a river up to his waist, showing his entire naked torso and tattoos, hair flowing behind him from the breeze. "Dream. Definitely dream," Star muttered aloud as her heart cheeks began flaring up with an almost blinding red. Star was still mostly hidden from him behind the last few layers of vegetation, and Marco seemed not to notice her yet.

"Right. But not your dream, princess," said a voice behind Star, a tone two parts annoyance and one part surprise. "So, I have to wonder, what is Moon's kid doing in here? Pretty sure her royal lameness would disapprove."

Star turned around to see Hekapoo glaring at her. The flame on her head was dimmed to a small candle, an arm set on the sorceress own waist.

"Hekapoo?!" Star slowly recovered from the surprise. "What are you doing here?! Wait... not my dream? How can I be dreaming a dream that's not my dream? That doesn't make any sense!" Then, after a brief pause, "uh, does that mean it is your dream?"

"Oh, no, not mine," Hekapoo said with a satisfied tone and a huge grin. "His dream. I am just, kinda, well, you could say I am guest starring. Notsorry."

Star looked back at Marco as Hekapoo pointed in his direction. Then she saw a second Hekapoo emerge through the woods on the other side of the river. That Hekapoo walked a few steps towards the waterfall and then stopped to sit in a nearby rock. The thirty-year-old warrior that was also Star's bestie looked up, directly at that version of Hekapoo and raised an eyebrow. "Hey H-poo. Care to join me?" he said with his smooth deep voice, his arms throwing his hair back against the falling water.

"Tempting as that sounds, you know I don't much enjoy getting wet," the flame sorceress sitting on the rock replied with a grin and pointed a finger to the flame floating above her head.

"Then I am coming out, H-poo," Marco replied with a grin and begun walking towards the shore. "But I can make no promises about not getting you wet." Star got it immediately. Especially because she was no where near the waterfall, nor Marco for that matter, and yet already getting quite damp herself.

"This show is not exactly going to be for kids, princess. You know that, right?" said the voice of Hekapoo behind her. She sounded more amused than annoyed now. With great difficulty, Star took a brief look away from Marco and confirmed that her own copy of Hekapoo was still there beside her.

Her mind tried processing the situation, but her eyes kept going back to Marco, whose waist was slowly emerging from the water. Was Hekapoo actually Hekapoo or was she just part of her dream somehow? If she was, then her mind had gotten really messed up, Star concluded. This was not her first wet dream about older Marco, not by a long shot, but it was the first in which she imagined any third person there, especially another woman, and especially Hekapoo of all people! Unless watching him and Jackie had given her a thing for, for 'looking stuff'. Nah, that couldn't be it! On the other hand, maybe somehow she had indeed gotten into Marco's dream. Magic like that was always a possibility, especially around Star. But then, it meant Hekapoo was a figment of Marco's imagination, which meant Star was safe. Because then the real Hekapoo wouldn't know anything about Star being here and thus not be able to tell her mom about this. Her mom must neeeveeer know, Star thought with a shudder.

Star's train of thought crashed that very moment, when the perfect ass emerged from under the water, as Marco made her way up the opposite river shore. Star's eyes went wide like saucers as she took in the toned buttocks of the man her bestie would, or at least could, become. The Hekapoo with Marco also seemed to be looking down, composed, yet naughtily expectant, her small fangs protruding from a closed mouth smile. "My my, have you grown up in this sixteen years," she teased.

"Turn around. Turn around. Turn around," Star muttered under her breath. But Marco didn't seem to notice her. Then, a chilling thought broke through the horniness and Star herself turned around to face her copy of Hekapoo. "Wait, he doesn't know I am here. So, if you know I am here, and he doesn't know I am here, then you are not part of him! Are you?"

"Afraid not," Hekapoo said, smiling at Star as she raised an eyebrow. "Although I fully expect to have a part of him in me quite soon," she joked, causing Star to give her a strange tilted look. Half of her wanted to groan at the terrible pun, half of her was green with envy. "Both of me are well, me. And before you ask, I am not doing much to his mind, just getting my real self involved on something that was going to happen anyways. But, speaking of guest Star-s," she stressed the Mewman princess' name, "I still don't know what you are doing here..."

Hekapoo moved in an instant, seemingly disappearing in a blur, and then she was right in front of Star, standing between her and the clearing with the river. She moved her hand through the air, trailing a path of flame. Suddenly the flame seemed to illuminate a partly translucent thread of dark greenish shadow going from Star's chest to the entrance of the clearing, becoming invisible again in direct sunlight. "Well, that's unexpected." As Hekapoo's hand finished the motion, the thread disappeared again.

"What was that? Did you do something to me?" Star jumped up and her eyes narrowed as she looked at the sorceress. She had instinctively raised her arm and taken aim, even though she knew she didn't have her wand.

"Calm down princess, I was only checking something," Hekapoo shot back annoyed. "Like I would do any harm to Moon's kid! Imagine how awkward that would make high commission business. But I really don't know how you got yourself linked with... oooohhh nice."

Hekapoo seemed to gasp as she interrupted her admonition. Star saw the sorceress blush and smile. Her eyes darted to the other shore of the river, where Marco's lips were pressing against his own copy of Hekapoo and a firm hand was gripping her left horn, pushing her close.

"So, linked, you said. Right?" said Star. Eyes narrowing again in suspicion.

"Well, yeah, me and I are also linked, of course," Hekapoo smirked back. "But what I was... ahhh..." Star looked back at the clearing and saw Marco's other hand on the inside of his Hekapoo clone's right thigh.

"Keep. Talking." Star said, in a surprisingly commanding voice. Her own eyes did not move from the scene on the other side of the river. She wanted to know what Hekapoo had to say, but there was no way she was taking her eyes away from older Marco. Why did he not just turn around already!?

"Well... mmmmhhh... you two are linked, somehow, by magic," Hekapoo managed to reply. On the other side of the river, Marco had pulled away from the kiss, if only briefly. They seemed to be bantering some more, but Star wasn't paying attention to their words. Then Hekapoo got up, did something to the ribbon of her dress, and the entire thing fell to the floor, leaving her completely naked and only partly hidden from the princess' point of view by Marco's own nude body. Star's version of Hekapoo continued in a serious tone. "Two links actually, one about a year old, standard soul-bond stuff, one true love, blah, blah, boring. The other one is very recent, however, fairly dark magic too..."

Star's heart skipped a beat. The All Seeing Eye spell? Had she done something permanent to the two of them, somehow?

"Give me a second," Hekapoo interrupted her explanation. Star saw the other Hekapoo snap her fingers and the copy beside her flickered out of existence and right back again a moment after. Then, on the other shore, two more Hekapoos also appeared our of thin air, already fully naked.

"Three on one. Think you can handle it, human?" one of them asked.

"You know I can handle all of you, Hekapoo," Marco answered confidently, his voice was melting Star's... well, it was significantly further down than her heart.

"Dark magic, as a rule, is powered by strong emotions of a small number of categories. This link is Butterfly magic, if I am not mistaken," continued the voice behind Star, which the princess was barely paying attention to as she stared at the three naked devilish forms and Marco's firm posterior. Each Hekapoo was a compact toned busty bundle of mischievous smiles and sex appeal and they now moved on Marco like a well coordinated ensemble. Unfortunately, most of the action was still facing away from Star, but she could see arms rubbing in front and around the man's toned form. She could spend days just staring at those shoulders, and especially at that ass. 

"I am going to guess..." her Hekapoo continued, in the background of Star's distracted mind, "... a dark spell powered by lust." Star's cheeks went even brighter as she spun around despite her fear of missing out on the view. "What on Mewni have you been getting up to with that kid, princess?!"

"It was not on purpose. I messed up. Please don't tell my mom," Star managed to say. Her eyes went wide with fear. If the queen ever found out about this. Well, St. Olga's wasn't as bad anymore, but Star was sure she would be pulled away from earth, at the very least. Which meant, she would be pulled away from Marco!

"Hahahaha... tell Moon?" Hekapoo just fell to the floor guffawing, a single finger clearing a tear of laughter from her eye. "Why would I tell Moon about anything of this? Like I want to explain what I am doing here to her either. Kid, you are not putting the multiverse in danger by casting a spell on a boy you have the hots for, dark magic or not. Which, you know, is the kind of thing I'd actually be forced to report to the magic high commission: threats to any major dimensions and the like. I have no intention on tattling on you just because you happen to have a voyeurism fetish on your human boyfriend. Besides, let me tell you, you have no idea what your mom got up to when she was your age, no matter how much she denies it all now. Perfect princess Moon my furry ass!"

Wait, what did her mom get up to when she was her age? Nah, couldn't be anything like this, mom just got married to dad and that had been it, right? Right? Then Star remembered what Moon had said to her about joining the game of flag: "Star, I did a lot of things you won't be doing." For a moment, Star though of pressing Hekapoo for more information, then decided that she really didn't want to know that much about her mom. Then another thought caught up with her.

"Wait, Marco is not my boyfriend, he is Jackie's... and I do not have a voyeurism fetish!" she shouted indignantly and, as always, unconvincingly.

"Oh, really? Are you sure?" Hekapoo raised an eyebrow and smirked at the young princess. "This should be amusing."

Then Star heard a deep low grunt behind her and turned around to see the three other Hekapoos had grabbed Marco by the arms and turned him around. As two of them began kissing his chest and roaming their hands through his arms, the remaining one winked right in the direction Star was hiding.

Star almost missed the wink, her gaze darted directly downwards, to the hard manhood of her crush. She had seen a lot of it that time with Jackie, but Hekapoo was right, Marco still had grown quite a lot between fourteen and thirty. It was, well, intimidating was an apt way to put it. Not that Star would ever be the one to back down from a challenge if the opportunity ever arose. Heh. Arose.

"So, you were saying..." a sardonic voice behind her begun, as the three Hekapoos sat Marco on the rock one of them had been occupying before and ran their hands down his chest. One of them going up until she was able to plant a kiss on the hunk's lips, two of them going lower and lower, until their faces reached the height of his member. A tongue traced each side of the shaft. Star's eyes glued to the scene. Suddenly it seemed that it was way too warm out here, despite it being the sunset. "... that you are not into watching."

"Yeah. Uhm. Not. Into. Waaatchiiing," Star responded without thinking. She barely noticed Hekapoo getting closer to her, the sorceress also staring towards the scene where she was thrice a participant. Marco's powerful hands seemed to have grabbed hold of the breasts of the Hekapoo that was kissing his mouth, while the other two began taking turns taking the tip of his cock into their lips, while the remaining one licked the underside.

Whether because this was just a dream, or because older Marco was never really what she thought of as 'her' Marco, Star didn't feel anywhere as conflicted as she had when watching him and Jackie. This was not painful and confusing, just plain hot. Sure, Star was jealous of Hekapoo, but it was more like the kind of jealous you got when you saw someone eating something that looked delicious. Well, exactly like that, actually.

Even across the river and the clearing she heard her best friend grunt and her heart raced. She wondered if Marco was already at his limit, after all, there were three Hekapoos there, and she seemed, well, experienced. What happened next surprised her. His two hands left the middle Hekapoo's breasts as Marco's entire body moved lower and with a swift movement his hands reached at the two remaining copies, lifting them up by their backsides and begun massaging the underside of them. "Got you!" A small remnant of childish amusement was mixed into the deep forceful voice.

"Get on top, H-poo," Marco commanded the middle clone. As his hands grasped around the other two, until two fingers began rubbing the outside of each copy's crotch.

"Don't call me, H... ooohh. Ok." The middle clone wrapped her arms around Marco's neck and pulled herself up, only to then begin lowering herself onto his dick, just as Marco's hands begun probing the other two clones, inserting one and then two fingers, while rubbing circular motions gently with his thumbs just above the entrance.

Star heard the breath of the Hekapoo she had nearby quicken, and saw she had pushed her own hand under her dress. The princess was severely tempted to do something quite similar, but that just seemed too embarrassing with the sorceress around, besides, wouldn't that prove her point?

Marco's movements started slow, but picked up pace quickly, both with his hands and with his hips bouncing the middle Hekapoo up and down, until it looked like she was riding an out of control warnicorn. Star could hear the moans from the other side of the river, except when they were drowned by the moans of the Hekapoo behind her. "That... ahhh... kid... uff... is... incredible! You are a lucky girl, princess Butterfly!"

"Yeah... lucky. Totally. Totally," answered Star, a bit sullenly.

The middle clone flame seemed to grow and then go up and up and up, until, with a long moan of orgasmic bliss, she faded out of existence.

"One done. Two to go," smiled Marco. "How was it, Hekapoo?"

"Do you even need to ask?" the clone to his right responded. Then the three of them got apart and begun to shift position, until Marco was laying on the grass and the two remaining Hekapoos lowered themselves on top of him. One over his crotch the other over his face.

The clone near Star seemed to catch her breath momentarily. "Wait. You can't be serious! You mean you two haven't done it yet?!"

Star felt a pang in her chest. Wait, was the woman, a member of the magic high commission and a friend of her mom, no less, telling her that she should have had sex with Marco? It wasn't like Star hadn't considered that, but she had figured it out too late that she was into Marco, and by then, Jackie had already asked him out. So they couldn't even date now, or kiss, let alone well, what he was doing now with three Hekapoos. "He. He has a girlfriend... who is not me."

"And you are letting that stop you?" Hekapoo smirked. "It would not stop me. Clearly it doesn't here, and it wouldn't in the waking world either if I were in your place. That boy is too good to let go of the chance. You... aaaahhh... you don't know what you are... aaaahhhhhhhhh... what you are missing!"

On the other shore of the river, the Hekapoo sitting on Marco's face had vanished with a long moan and a flame explosion. A moment after, the one sitting on his cock exploded as well. Marco was sweating, but seemed still ready to go. "Another clone? So, there is more of you around, H-poo? Are you coming out, or do you want me to find you? Because you know I can play that game too..."

Besides Star, Hekapoo began walking towards the clearing. Then, suddenly, she stopped herself and threw one last, broad smile in Star's direction, fangs showing. The princess was flustered, cheeks flaming red, legs pressed together, wondering what else she was going to see Hekapoo and older Marco do tonight. But nothing could have prepared her for what would happen next.

"Actually, princess, do you want to give it a try yourself?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Old Flame **s** , technically, but originally H-poo's appearance was a (very) minor spoiler. Shame that my OCD with tagging ruins that on this site. Oh well, that is truly the least of the surprises to come.


	3. The Man of Her Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which ethical dilemmas are solved by impartial and flawless logic, a princess is loved once upon a dream, and we get our first look into the thoughts of some of our other protagonists.

## Chapter 3: The Man of Her Dreams

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place between _"Running With Scissors"_ (S02E16b) and _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b) It also takes place immediately after Chapter 2. This story so far is considered compatible with SvtFoE season 2 events up to that point.

"Actually, princess, do you want to give it a try yourself?" Hekapoo had crossed her arms and was looking at Star with an eyebrow raised. The Mewman princess felt instantly torn between enthusiastic agreement and conflicted restraint. She stood on the tips of her toes, clenching her fists right in front of her mouth, holding in a scream of joy. Her heart told her to say yes to the sorceress' offer, her well exercised sense of adventure pushed her to seize the opportunity, her arousal bid her to not hesitate. Yet something in the back of her mind disagreed, demanding her to think through her actions.

Star had a reputation, perhaps more well deserved than she often liked to admit to herself, for being reckless and irresponsible. But over the last year, she had learned some painful lessons about actions and their consequences, and gained a measure of responsibility, especially where Marco was concerned. This unfortunately meant that, as much as she wanted what Hekapoo was offering her, she had to consider what this all meant for her and her bestie.

"Wait. What? Really? But, you? I mean, of course yes! But him?" Argh! This shouldn't be a hard choice at all. Since when did Star intentionally walk away from fun and excitement? And this was fun an excitement of the best kind! But well, Marco loved Jackie, not her. He had said so himself. Then again, he had just fucked Hekapoo instead of Jackie too, three times! What did one go with Star change things? It didn't. It shouldn't. Not at all, right? right?

"It is only a dream, princess," the sorceress goaded her on, "he doesn't have to know you are not a figment of his imagination. Come tomorrow, you can pretend all this was a figment of yours for all I care. As for me, well, I could very well go another round myself if you say no to my offer, so either way he is getting some. But well, I expect that seeing the two of you will prove... entertaining."

"So it is you who is into watching, then?" Star asked, momentarily glad she could bounce back the older woman's accusation. Hekapoo only shrugged, seemingly unembarrassed to admit so. "And, you said it is just a dream, right? Marco is not betraying Jackie if it's just a dream, and I get this stupid crush out of my system, and no one's feelings get hurt, correct?"

Hekapoo shrugged. "I make no promises on all that other stuff. But I guarantee you it is just a dream, princess." Then, with a wink, she pushed the last few branches aside and slapped star's back with her other hand, just below the wings, propelling her forward into the clearing by the river. Where Hekapoo's palm had made contact, a burning mark began spreading through Star's shirt, then her tights, then her boots. She barely felt the flames on her skin, but in seconds her clothes had burned to ash.

"Wait, what...? Hekapoo!?" Star turned back in surprise. She hadn't said yes. True, she was about to. But still, what the hell? Just a dream, she reminded herself and turned again, looking up.

"Star?" Marco called from the other shore, his tone once more resembling that of the fourteen year old boy she knew, albeit on a deeper vocal register, a note of surprise and confusion mixed in as well. Yet his body remained that of the hunky adventurer he had become while chasing the scissor maker. "Star, what are you doing here and... oh, wow, I am so sorry!" His hands darted downwards to cover his erection. He directed his eyes upwards and to the right, pointedly averting his gaze from his best friend's naked form.

Star had rushed to cover her chest and crotch with her arms as well, when she remembered her clothes were not there any more. But when she saw Marco's bashful look and embarrassed body language, she began to laugh. Apparently, even older Marco, when dealing with her friend and not Hekapoo, was still, well, Marco. Star let her arms fall to her side and begun walking towards the edge of the river, feeling slightly more at ease. "Hey, nothing to be sorry about, believe me," she said with a bright glowing blush of her own.

"But, well, this is... I am not decent and, you are... well..." he was still looking away, towards the sky, still covering himself. "Star, you are naked too."

"I noticed," Star said as calmly as she could, sitting on a ledge by the river, dipping her feet into the water. "How do I look?"

"You are... well, you are too young for me to be looking..." Star felt a pang in her chest. Of course Marco wouldn't look at her, she was just a little girl and her chest had had barely anything to cover, especially compared to Hekapoo's. Ugh, this was such a bad idea! She quickly noticed, though, that Marco didn't seem disgusted or uninterested. He mostly seemed embarrassed and, well, conflicted. "I mean, I am thirty years old now, and I definitely don't want to be a pe... a pervert," he clarified.

Star looked up in surprise. Then back down, towards the water, checking out Marco's reflection. Maybe he was right, this kind of age difference was something her parents had once warned her about. Even in Mewni, a princess was not supposed to allow herself to be seduced by anyone more than half again her age, unless her parents agreed to the suitor. Then again, her parents had not thought of the case in which Star was doing the seducing and, well, Tom was actually much older than thirty, chronologically, which came to show age and wisdom where not one and the same and... wait a second!

"Marco, do you even remember those sixteen years?" Star asked with a quizzical look. Marco turned to look at her, a puzzled expression on his handsome face. "What do you remember of yesterday? Or of your last birthday?"

"Star, my last birthday was before you came to Ea..." Marco began, then his eyes opened wide. "Wait, no, that doesn't make sense. I remember chasing Hekapoo through all those dimensions, I remember Nachos. But those memories are vague, like, like a dream. And yesterday, I think I was on a date with J..."

"See!" Star jumped out of the water, a little too eager to stop Marco's train of thought there. "This is just a dream, Marco. You are not thirty, not anymore that you were yesterday. You are just inside a thirty year old body again, because you are dreaming you are! But you are still fourteen in real life, like me. Which means you can swim over to this side and plow me without guilt... if that's what you want..."

Star tried to sound confident when saying that. She had considered adding something about how he clearly did, since he was dreaming of her. But it felt to her too manipulative, too unfair and confusing for Marco, too, well... Tom. He hadn't really dreamed of her, she had somehow sneaked into his dream. Still, Star hoped Marco would not say no to that, because as bold as the Mewman princess was prepared to be right now, as much as she needed this; a direct rejection from Marco while being there, naked for him to see and asking him for sex, would be a brutal blow to her heart and her ego. Besides, you know, leaving her more frustrated than hitting mewberty at a convent!

"A dream?" Marco seemed to be looking at her again, up and down, as he processed the implications of her speech. "Oh, I don't think I've had this dream before..."

Star's heart sunk. But then she saw Marco's smile. At once childish glee and smoldering hotness when coming from that handsome new body of his. He began walking towards the river, and then never stopped, as he seamlessly transitioned into swimming breast stroke until he was right by her side. "I mean, I usually don't look like this when you show up, but I guess dreams are weird like that."

"Yes, yes, totally, totally, weird dreams... always doing weird things," Star's eyes were just glued to Marco's biceps beside her, and then to his chest, and then, through the water, down to his very adult cock. Eventually, she got to the point of actually processing his words, "wait, where do I usually show up?"

Marco held up a hand and began counting with his fingers. "School dreams, inter-dimensional dreams, bounce-lounge dreams, at-home dreams..."

"Ok, ok, Marco, but are any of those dreams, you know, this kind of dream?" Star asked, turning around in the water to face Marco as he leaned against what had previously been her shore. She placed her hands on those magnificent pecs of his. She wasn't sure she wanted to ask. Partly because she felt a bit guilty interviewing her best friend under false pretenses, and partly because she was more than ready to stop talking and get into the action.

"Not that I remember," Marco said, making Star feel deflated once more, until he suddenly grabbed her by the chin and pulled her up for a kiss. Star felt the blood rush to her face and a sort of electric current flow from her chest to her cheek hearts. She felt Marco's lips press gently against hers, opening them as his tongue darted inside her mouth. It was not a forceful kiss, but it was not shy either. The touch on her chin was gentle as well, even though Star sensed a strength in that hand she had never associated with the boy. There was a deliberate carefulness to Marco's advances, like he feared hurting her or scaring her, but at the same time there was raw animal power behind every movement. He might not have the mind of a thirty year old dimensional adventurer, but he had the body and the muscle memory. Star pushed back into the kiss with hungry desire and all the force she could muster. They held there for long blissful moments. "But this seems like a good place to start," Marco concluded after their mouths separated.

"Woah! Way to go princess!" Hekapoo cheered on unabashedly. She had reappeared on her rock, on the farther shore, fully dressed once more. She looked at the two friends with a smug expression and a double-fanged grin. She flourished with a hand in front of her and a huge bucket of popcorn emerged from a swirling portal of flames. She begun grabbing a handful. "Didn't really think you could be so bold, kid. I underestimated you."

"Hekapoo?" Marco seemed surprised and conflicted, "I well... you went away..."

"Oh, don't mhmind me, humhman," she just said through a popcorn stuffed mouth. She continued after swallowing, "you just take care of your princess there. I don't know what stories you read, but I don't think she is just after a kiss from the handsome knight, if you catch my drift..."

Marco looked at Hekapoo some more and blinked, not quite getting the situation. Star felt herself annoyed at the interruption. But then again, she kinda owed the whole situation to Hekapoo to begin with.

"Apparently, she, well, she likes to watch, Marco," whispered Star a bit self-consciously. "I guess I don't mind, if you don't. After all, is just a dream."

Marco looked back and forth between the sorceress and his friend, dumbfounded. There was something very weird going on with his subconscious if this was his dream. Apparently, he was kinkier than he thought he was. Well, dreams were dreams after all. "If that's the case, Star, what you say we give her a show?" He winked at his best friend and then, as if making sure he was not scaring her away, ran a gentle hand through her soft golden hair.

Star was no longer sure if Marco was dreaming or she was. She moved like in a trance, and things seemed to flow more like a fantasy than the way they did in reality. She felt Marco's hands roam her back through the water, fingers massaging her wings and gently falling on her lower back. She felt her own hands touching Marco's muscular thighs, pushing her weightless floating body to press a kiss on his mouth and her chest against his own. An instant later, the kiss had pushed the two of them unto the grass, somehow softly transporting them outside of the water and more than a meter away from where they started. Star was on top of Marco and was kissing down his neck. As she went lower, her ass made contact with something hard and upwards pointing, and she wasted no time to rub herself against it.

Marco's hands stopped her. They grabbed her from under her arms and pushed her back up. Before she could protest, she felt his hands press against her chest, a strong pressure that gave way to individual fingers. A circular motion, a pinch, another press. Marco's hands were playing the princess sensitive nipples like a fine instrument, and her moans were the music. She felt like the ground had disappeared from them and they were floating among the clouds.

They, in fact, were. Somehow they were going up as they played with each other, laying on a white fluffy cloud. Both Marco and Star noticed, neither of them cared. He rolled her around, so he was on top, and began applying his mouth in earnest. To her neck, her arms, her breasts, her belly, her legs, her...

"Oh god! Marcooooo!" Star felt the man's tongue go into her and a shiver of pleasure flow from there all the way to her fingers and toes. He had just gotten started and it was already almost too much. It didn't hurt, not at all. Star didn't know if it was even possible for anything they did here, in a cloud in a magic dream, to hurt. But even if it were possible, Marco was being incredibly gentle, and she was probably wet enough that he could have stuck far more inside of her than his tongue and she would have been ready ages ago. But for now she just felt Marco kiss her sex, his breath on her insides, his tongue on her folds, and, eventually, his lips around her most pleasurable nub.

Star was melting into pleasure, and the sky itself seemed to change colors to the tune of her moans. It was still sunset. Eternally sunset. Clouds changed from red, to gold, to purple, as the Mewman princess' breath quickened and the mounting pressure inside of her rose and fell, slowly gaining intensity through each loop. In another cloud, sitting with a knee over another and a half empty bucket of popcorn, Hekapoo was idly humming a song Star couldn't quite make out.

Star felt something powerful building up inside her. No, this was too soon for an ending, Star decided. This was Marco's dream, she didn't want to be greedy with his bestie's dreams. Star's hands roamed Marco's hair and then she tapped on his arm. Somehow, he knew. He immediately knew what to do, and lifted himself briefly and turned himself so that his face stood in the same place, but his body reoriented so that his legs rested on the cloud above Star's head. Stretching a little to make up the height difference, the princess positioned herself so that her mouth could kiss the tip of Marco's member. She licked a few times along the shaft and tried pushing her lips around it. After a few tries, she managed to get most of that monster into her mouth, and began instinctively going up and down. Whether from having watched Jackie do this before, or because of the magic of dreams, Star felt that she got the technique mastered in no time at all. Her best friend's grunts confirmed to her that it was not just wishful thinking.

Marco himself had also gone back to eagerly lapping Star's sex and the princess could feel both of their bodies convulse with small waves of pleasure as they both built up to something larger and larger. She heard more humming from the sorceress' direction. Suddenly, she recognized it. It was from a really cheesy, really annoying movie Marco had showed her three weeks after she got to Earth. A movie about a princess, but, you know, one of those princesses, the ones that were there just to be rescued. Marco had thought she would find it funny, but she mostly found it annoying at the time.

A pair of powerful hands gripped her ass and pushed her up towards Marco's mouth. He was not just licking now, he was practically penetrating her with his tongue. It was not as intense as him sucking on her clitoris, but it was a strange sensation and in her mind, she felt Marco's hunger for her, and almost got over the edge on just that thought. She for her part picked up the pace, taking Marco in and out of her mouth in rapid desperate movements, darting her tongue around the head whenever she could. Lightning seemed to jump from cloud to cloud now as they changed to brighter and brighter colors, with no sign of approaching rain.

In the background, supremely amused, Hekapoo kept humming. And, despite her focus being otherwise occupied, Star could make the lyrics in her mind: 'But if I know you, I know what you'll do... You'll love me at once... The way you did, once upon a dream.' The small part of her that still noticed felt annoyed at the forger of dimensional scissors.

"Marcooo! Let's..." Star knew she was going to be done soon. She worried that if they finished, they might wake up, there was something the dream was building up to. Something that was happening while they were this high on the clouds. She couldn't explain how she knew, but she knew, that once what they were doing came to a conclusion, so would the dream, and she didn't want to end it this way. "... Marco, please, get inside me!"

"Star? Are you sure?" Marco seemed hesitant. In his mind, it was still one thing to do what they had done so far, even in an older body. But, well, something felt strange about shoving himself into Star's younger self the way he was now, even in a dream, even if this wasn't really Star, even if his mind was just fourteen, even if he really wanted to.

"Marco Diaz!" Star cried impatiently. "I am very very sure. This is just a dream. Your dream! So get on with it!"

Marco blinked. Star felt the guilt pour on her like a bucket of cold water. She hadn't lied per se, but she was implying Marco wanted this and that it was just his fantasy, while it was her that had maneuvered him into the situation. Still, she would deal with the guilt later, right now she needed this, and like Hekapoo said, this was only a dream either way. Marco held her up by the shoulders. She opened her legs to give him access. He looked right into her eyes as he lunged himself forward.

Star woke up.

Star looked up. Saw the canopy of her bed. Felt her pillow under her head, and her precious wand still there. She swore copiously.

"Come on! Not even in my fucking dreams?!" was what the princess of Mewni said after exhausting the more colorful expletives.

\----

Waking up extremely frustrated, Star had taken matters into her own hands. For the second time that night, she came alone in her bedroom, and this time, she had only the memory of Marco, rather than whatever weird magic projection had happened earlier. It had calmed her down somewhat, physically. But in a less immediate way, it had left her even more deeply unsatisfied.

She had hoped getting the crush out of her system in the dream would have helped her get over the whole Marco thing. It was really not good that she felt that way about her best friend, especially when he was happy with his new girlfriend. Star knew this could only end badly. And yet, she had to admit to herself that she was not over it, not by a long shot. If anything, that confusing dream had dragged her even deeper into the West Mewnian Swamp of emotions that was 'the whole Marco thing'.

The worst part was, Star realized, that she wasn't sure now that had really been Marco's dream. More likely, it had been her own dream. All she had was Hekapoo's word that they had been inside Marco's dream, and for all the princess knew, that Hekapoo was just a figment of her quite overactive imagination. Which meant that, in the span of about eight hours, Star had: spied on her best friend while he was having his first time with his girlfriend, who was also her friend; involuntarily magically violated him without his knowledge; and then had a dream in which she creeped on him a second time and then manipulated him into having sex with her. A part of her mind reminded her that she never even got to the sex. Another part retorted that that wasn't the point at all.

Maybe Tom had been right about her, maybe Star was just like him after all: impulsive, selfish, manipulative. Oh, and right, she had managed to hurt Tom's feelings too in the same night. He hadn't even yelled at her. Not even gotten mad, and Tom always got mad! Seeing him sad and hurt had been far more unsettling to Star than any rage explosion could have been. He had just told her that he understood her crush on Marco and that he would go away. Sadly, Star realized, that was what she should be doing about the Marco thing herself: just let him go out with Jackie and don't get in the way. If she could not do at least that much, well, then she was actually a worse person than Tom had been!

Then, why was it so hard to do just that? Why did she feel the impulse to cast the seeing eye spell again and see if Marco had woken up at the same time she did? To check if maybe the dream had been real? Or if he was instead sleeping at Jackie's place, without a care in the world while Star needed him here...

"What is wrong with me?" the princess thought to herself.

\----

Marco woke up sweaty and confused. Where was he? This wasn't his room! Who was?... oh. He looked down to see Jackie's head resting on his chest, using it as a pillow. They were still naked, and the covers were nowhere to be found. But then again, Jackie's parents were away for the weekend and it was almost Summer, in California, so the covers were more cosmetic than anything else.

He remembered the whole date. The movie had been great, but he had scarcely paid attention to it, he had instead been focused on Jackie the entire time. He still couldn't believe his luck just to be dating her. Jackie Lynn Thomas. When she asked him to walk her home, he figured he was just being a gentleman. When she told him to come up just for a bit, well, he had had his hopes, but quickly reminded himself that it was probably not what he thought and to not ruin things with the girl of his dreams just because he was getting horndog thoughts. When Jackie had taken off her shirt, well, at that point Marco's brain had fully given up. There was no way he could be this lucky, and yet, he was.

The events of the previous night played on his mind. Jackie had been amazing, and he, well, Marco thought he had managed to not mess up things too badly at any rate. And, she had said, she had said she loved him! And he had said it back! And then they had fallen asleep and...

... and Marco had dreamed about two other women while laying there with the girl of his dreams. He had somehow gone and reverted to the Hekapoo-dreams, which he had had for weeks after the dimensional scissors incident, way after his memories had mostly faded. He didn't know why, is not like he had ever done anything with Hekapoo during the time he was away from Earth. He remembered their bantering, their flirting, their chase across entire worlds, but even in a decade and a half it had never gone beyond that. Yet he had dreamed about fucking Hekapoo many times after he got back to Earth. But, then again, the dreams had gone away for a while now. Maybe having his first time with Jackie triggered a weird association in his mind? Still, did dreaming about other people constitute cheating? Would Jackie be mad if she knew? It is not like he could control it, but...

Shit, Star! He had not only dreamed about having sex with Hekapoo. He had dreamed about, well, about sixtynining Star, and possibly intended to do more than that. He had dreamed about creeping on his best friend while being a thirty-years old guy. Man, if Star ever knew he had dreamed something like that, she would kill him!

The worst part was, it had felt alright. It hadn't been a nightmare or a crazy messed up dream. Well, it had been crazy and messed up, but he had enjoyed it. He had never thought of Star that way, or, well, at least not more than he suspected most teenage boys thought of their teenage female friends in that way. Which is to say, only very occasionally, if the situation put his mind into a strange place. But now, he couldn't stop thinking about that dream. How Star had looked naked, how she had acted and what she had said to him, what she had asked him to do... He reminded himself that it was a dream, that the real Star wouldn't ever ask for something like that from him. Well, not unless Mewberty was something you could go through twice, which he thought unlikely.

Then he looked down, to his girlfriend, sleeping on top of him with a relaxed expression. Not a care in the world. The girl that had just confessed love to him. The girl who was way way out of his league. The girl that had just given him her first time. The girl he didn't deserve. And he was laying there with her, thinking about sex with his best friend instead.

"What is wrong with me?" the karate boy thought to himself.

\----

An hour or so later, Marco was again fast asleep, snoring. Jackie woke up and gently lifted her head from her boyfriend's chest. Last night had been great. The movie had been kinda lame, but the cute boy being adorable and bashful had more than made up for it. Ah, Marco Diaz, if only you realized how charming you actually are under all those insecurities of yours. She had seen that in him before, and last night, she had seen a lot more of it.

True, she had had to put some effort to contrive the right situation for him to finally sleep with her. The boy had spent the last few weeks being first charmingly and then frustratingly oblivious to any hint even slightly more subtle than her undressing in front of him. But after they got started, there had been a few times when Marco had really taken charge of the situation. Especially near the end, Jackie thought, and her toes curled involuntarily. You are smoother than you let on, Diaz, she thought.

But well, she was the opposite, wasn't she? She had been so afraid during the whole thing, even if it had been her idea. Afraid that she might not know what to do, or how to play it off, that her mask of coolness might slip. Many in school would say Jackie was an effortlessly cool girl, but she knew better, she knew that 'effortlessly cool' took the most effort. That was part of why she liked Marco. Marco could fail, he could fail spectacularly and make a fool of himself and then dust himself back up and try again. She had learned to do that herself when she learned skateboarding, but somehow, she felt she had forgotten how. Now she did not dare make a fool of herself, especially not in front of others. Except perhaps, maybe sometimes, with Marco. The boy really acted like he thought the sun shone out of her bottom. But what if she failed to live up to that? Well, that was the thing, she didn't think Marco would think any less of her even if she did.

But, well, there was one girl in the whole Echo Creek school that was actually effortlessly cool. As in, she didn't care about the concept of cool at all and yet she was intrinsically cool, just by virtue of what or who she was: Star. That was the other thing that Jackie saw in Marco, if she forced herself to be honest about it: his friendship with Star. The two were inseparable, and Marco might not realize it, but he reflected Star in a way.

Now, most girls would be jealous to know their boyfriend lived with another girl, especially if it was as amazing a girl as Star Butterfly. And maybe, maybe a little bit of Jackie was jealous, or worried, or unsure about it. But there was one part of her that felt strangely happy about it. A part that had felt disappointed, rather than relieved, when Marco had said he wasn't in love with Star, or even interested. She had even had to hide her face when asking, so that Marco couldn't notice the eagerness she felt in asking. She had let him believe it was uneasiness instead.

It was not that Jackie was attracted to Star, not at all, she was pretty sure she was exclusively - or at least very much primarily - into boys. And she did love Marco, either way, for who he himself was. Whatever self-esteem issues he had, Jackie had no doubt she was in reality the one getting the better deal. The boy was smart, brave, and way cuter than he himself knew. Yet there was something about the idea of Marco and Star that made him even more attractive to her, even as it worried her and confused her. It was majorly weird, impossible to explain, and probably the opposite of how any other girl Jackie knew thought or ought to think, but the feeling was there.

"What is wrong with me?" the skateboarding girl thought to herself.

\----

In another dimension. A flame sorceress woke up with a wide grin. She lifted a hand and the cover magically slid away from her body. She sat up while humming to herself, a song she had learned while keeping tabs on the quite amusing boy from Earth. The song she had hummed while watching the princess seduce her best friend. She walked down stone stairs in the palatial temple she was currently using as a Summer home, and proceeded to make herself some breakfast.

"What? There is nothing wrong with me," Hekapoo spoke aloud to the empty room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream_  
>  _I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam_  
>  _Yet I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem_  
>  _But if I know you, I know what you'll do_  
>  _You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream_  
>  \- Disney - Once Upon a Dream
> 
> And dreams do always come true for magical Disney princesses, right? Right?


	4. Plots within Plot within Porn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our final protagonist is introduced, a master plan is secretly hatched and we get a new perspective on familiar events

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warning** : SFW. I repeat, this chapter is SFW (except perhaps because of teenagers saying 'fuck' a lot). Yeah, ironically the one chapter with 'Porn' in the title contains no porn. My deepest apologies, and I assure you we will return to your regularly scheduled fuckfest in Chapter 5.

## Chapter 4: Plots within Plot within Porn

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place mostly during and around the SvtFoE episode _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b). This story so far is considered compatible with SvtFoE season 2 events up to that point.

The next morning had been majorly awkward. Marco had arrived when Star was having breakfast. She had been slowly nursing her cereal while sitting in front of their TV set. Her thoughts left her with little appetite, so it had been slow going. She had been sitting there for half an hour and still was only halfway through the bowl when Marco showed up. He seemed to avoid looking at her, and Star was having trouble with how to act.

"Hey, good morning, Marco!" she said, hoping she sounded cheerful enough. It tore at her heart to pretend that last night had not happened. But, she realized, to him, it hadn't. None of it. Not her spell, nor her weird dream. She had decided it was unlikely that it had truly been his dream, it must have been just Star's own mind playing cruel tricks on her. "Hope you had a fun date with Jackie last night..."

"Ah, ehem, yeah, watched a movie," he replied. Should Star tease him on that? He had arrived the next morning! Even without spying on him, she should suspect he had stayed at Jackie's place, and tease him. It was the proper friend reaction. Maybe it would be suspicious that she didn't. Then again, what if it wasn't obvious from just when he came back? What if he lied about it and then Star had to walk the fine line between not believing him, but also not not-believing him too strongly, since she wasn't supposed to know for certain and... "Hopefully you weren't too bored without me around, Star, heh."

"Me? Bored? Pfff! No way!" Nice save, Marco. Now I pretend your little distraction worked and we don't need to get into the topic. But, well, what to talk about instead? Every topic that came to the princess' mind was related to her feelings for him or to her overwhelming guilt over the last twelve hours. She supposed she could mention Tom showing up, but what if Marco pressed for details, or insisted on going after the demon? Yeah, that would be totally awesome, Marco chases Tom to hell to let him have it for creeping into his best friend's room at night, and Tom just calmly explains to him what kind of per...son Star really is. No, no thanks. "So... see ya later, best bud. I have plans, to go to the mall, with Janna! Yeah! So, later!"

The weird thing was Marco had seemed as relieved as she had been when she actually headed out. Was he really that nervous to admit he had slept with Jackie? Most guys in school would be bragging about that. Maybe he just didn't want to brag to Star? Or maybe... did he remember the dream?

Star waved her magic wand to summon her trusty friend cloudy. She hopped right in and waited until she had put some distance between her and the Diaz's home before dialing. "Hey, Janna banana, want to go shopping right now and pretend we had planned to do that all along since well, about two hours before this conversation happened?" she spoke quickly into her phone as she floated towards the mall.

Janna's response had been far more laconic, "Sure, Star."

\----

Eventually, after a few hours of browsing randomly at the mall, they had ended up at Janna's place. The room shared the girl's aesthetic: mostly black metal band posters, a glass box containing her pet snake, three skulls, plenty of candles and weird looking talismans, a wardrobe full of mostly greens and blacks, Marco's library card on top of the bedside table, a large bookshelf full of old poetry books, and, perhaps most surprisingly, bright pink bedsheets. There were also a pair of fettered chains that Janna had asked Star to magic up, attached to one of the walls. When the princess had asked what Janna wanted those for, she had just winked and then made up a story about them being decorative. She had insisted on a key for them and having them be functional, though.

"Ok, Star, so, I believe this is the part where I ask what was really going on this morning." Janna said with a shrug, as they both sat on the floor.

"Janna... well, I kinda do need to tell this whole mess to someone, because I am afraid I will go crazy otherwise or do something... extreme." Janna raised an eyebrow. Star Butterfly had once placed mines in a football field, and she routinely blasted people with horned whales. She was not about to judge, but she was not sure she wanted to know what her friend considered extreme.

"Calm down, Star, you can tell me anything." Besides, she loved secrets. She knew most of Marco's. She had managed to extract some very juicy stuff from Jackie over the years too, despite how private the skateboarding girl suddenly became when you dug pass the first few layers of relatively tame secrets. She also knew all about Ferguson's obsession with furry porn, which was just a bit more than even she wanted to know. So really, nothing Star could tell her should be able to shock her. Then again, this was Star we were talking about. She ventured a hopeful guess, "You killed a person and need help hiding the body?"

"What? No! But, Janna, I really need you to swear an oath, on your life, that you will not repeat to any living soul what I am about to say..." Whoa, Star seemed serious. Which meant, this was going to be seriously juicy stuff. No way Janna could say no to that!

"Sure, I swear." Star seemed to look at her expectantly. "Ok, ok... Star Butterfly of Mewni, I swear to thee on my life that I shall not speak of what you are about to tell me with any other living soul. How was that?"

"Well, my mom would have some corrections on the wording. And the 'thee' is a bit unnecessary. But you know what? It is good enough for me!" Star seemed excited, she took a deep breath and then... "So-last-night-Marco-and-Jackie-were-out-on-a-date-and-I-was-bored-and-they-said-they-were-only-going-to-the-movies-so..."

Janna nodded and said 'aha' at all the right moments. Except for that, it took all of her concentration to keep up with the hundred miles per hour of Star's tale. She thought she had managed to understand most of it, although the princess herself seemed confused about what had happened with the whole dream bit. Well, that part probably mattered very little, actually. Her mind began running through the possible courses of action once it seemed clear that Star's tale was drawing to a close. Of course, the easiest would be to tell Star to forget all about her crush, but that would not be fun at all. Besides, given what she just heard, Janna did not think suppressing the feelings and waiting for them to go away was going to work for Star.

"Ok, so, you are in love with Marco, right?" she confirmed the obvious.

"Well, I wouldn't say 'in love', he is a great friend, and he is cute, and I might have the teensyest, tiniest crush on him..." Star corrected her, unconvincingly.

"Do you want to date him, or do you mostly want to fuck him?" After all, one was easier than the other.

"Janna!" Star reacted in embarrassment. Then placed one hand under her chin and seemed to ponder for a second, "Well, since you are bound by an oath of secrecy and all... I think I want both. Perhaps I'd really settle for the second one right now. Maybe just that would be enough to, you know, get over the whole thing, then go back to the way things were before. But, Janna, he is with Jackie! And he loves Jackie, and she loves him back. Even if I could compete... which, I don't think I could... I don't want to ruin that for him!"

"Ok, so the priority is that Marco should not be hurt by this, correct?" Janna asked and Star nodded. She ignored Star's assessment of her competitive chances for now. Honestly, the princess probably had more cards to play there than she realized, but it would not matter unless she had the guts to go for the kill. "How about Jackie? How much do you care about her getting hurt?"

"Janna! Jackie is my friend too, and she is not doing anything wrong. Of course I don't want to hurt her!" Star seemed genuinely offended at Janna's question. The troublemaker girl smiled at that.

"Calm down, Star. Remember, Jackie is my friend too. Way before we two met. I am not sure I would even help you if you wanted her hurt... but it does complicate things." She thought about it some more. This was a significantly harder problem than, say, cracking Marco's latest computer password, but also more fun, and probably more rewarding. That guy was into some pretty vanilla porn anyways, so the best thing in his computer were actually his embarrassing childhood pictures and that cheesy poem about Jackie he wrote ages ago. "Ok, and you said Tom tried to manipulate you into going back with him, right? What about him? Do you care if he gets hurt?"

"No, of course I don..." Star hesitated. "Well, not like I care about Marco and Jackie. But I don't think I want to hurt him much either..."

"Any chance you want to go back to dating him instead of Marco?" Janna had to ask. It was the easiest solution in any case.

"Ugh, no way! I mean... maybe he is what I deserve, but, he is not what I want, ok?" Star looked down, guiltily.

"I mean, from your story it sounded like you regret not sleeping with him, Star," Janna commented, setting the bait. "The claws thing sounded wicked hot!"

"Oh, it was! Super hot. Way hot. But, well, Tom and I, is not really a good match, you know, as people..." Ok, ok, getting somewhere now.

"But you would still fuck him just the once if you could, right?" Check.

"What the hell, Janna!?" Pause. "Yeaah... I totally would." That was it! Checkmate!

"Ok, Star. I got it all figured out. I can't promise no one will get hurt, but it has the best chances to work for the best for all five people involved. Here is what you are going to do, you are going to get three concert tickets to that band Marco and you love so much, which is, coincidentally, coming to Echo Creek soon, and you are going to invite Marco. Then..." this was the delicate part, "... you are going to invite Jackie too!"

"What?!" Star's eyes went wide. "Oh, I see, maybe if I include her in our friendship I can make it up to her for, for spying on them and stuff..."

"Sure, you can think of it like that..." Janna ran with it. The plan would work best if Star was unaware of where things were going. Now Janna only had to make sure what she knew about Jackie was still current, maybe give a push or two to the other people involved. This was an ambitious plan, she knew, way more moving pieces than most of what she usually got up to and very little chance to influence things personally after they were set in motion. She knew that after Star left, she would have to run through the whole scenario a few times before she even called Jackie over to talk. And of course, it was not as if she could tell the other girl anything directly, an oath was an oath after all. Also, was she so sure that she could predict how he would react? She had some clue about it from what she knew from Marco, and what Star herself had just told her, but what if she got him all wrong?

"Hey, Janna... by the way... do you think I am a horrible person?" Star asked, suddenly teary eyed. What?! Janna was taken by surprise, her mind was elsewhere. Her train of thought was halfway across Siberia when it was forced to a screeching halt. Well, she could always plan the details later, right now she focused on her friend's question.

"What? No way, Star! You are sometimes a bit brash, sure, but you are one of the most pure hearted people I know!" Janna spoke truthfully.

"But, but I spied on Marco!"

"Who hasn't?"

"And had magical sex with him without his knowledge..."

"By accident!"

"And hurt Tom's feelings real bad..."

"After he tried to guilt trip you into dating him. If anything, he deserves far worse."

"And tried to seduce Marco..."

"In a dream," Janna concluded. "Star. Please. Based on the evidence presented I, as your judge, conclude that you might be a great rebel princess... but you suck at being a bad girl! Believe me! I mean, I actually am one, you know? You do not even qualify for consideration to the bad girl club." Janna tried her best to have Star not being that bad of a person sound like an insult. "Bad girl card application rejected! Try again never."

They looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then, both girls started laughing. Star seemed worlds more at ease now. Maybe calm enough to survive the next few weeks. Janna almost felt bad for what she knew Star would need to go through even if the plan succeeded.

\---- 

Jackie made her way to the Diaz's home carrying two extra skateboards in her arms. She had spent the whole morning designing them and getting them printed by her uncle on his break. She was really excited about this, she had been since Star had called her and told her that Marco was inviting her to go to the Love Sentence concert, and whether she minded if Star went with them. Well, of course she didn't! She had made sure to have a skateboard for Star too, just to make sure she felt included.

It had been a few weeks already since she and Marco did it for the first time. Their dates ended at her place or his a lot more often now that they did before, but the requirement to keep things secret from their parents meant that they hadn't had any other opportunity to let themselves go at it quite like that time. Jackie got the feeling Marco's parents were mostly truly oblivious, and hers kinda ignored things in a way that required the two kids simply to maintain plausible deniability about what they were doing. But either way, they couldn't be quite as brazen or quite as loud as they had been that one time. Making out was easy, and some level of heavy petting was sometimes within reach, but sealing the deal required more privacy than they were usually afforded. Well, it was only a matter of waiting for another opportunity like that, when either set of parents went on vacation or something.

She pushed the doorbell and Star opened the door wearing a t-shirt with what seemed to be the three of them on it: Marco, Star and herself. "No way! You made concert tees?" for some reason, Jackie felt a jolt of joy and relief when she saw the funny t-shirts. So Star had included her on her design? Well, it made sense since they were all going together and they were all friends. But still, Jackie hadn't hung out much with Star since she started dating Marco. She had begun to worry that maybe Star resented her in some way deep inside. The tee gave her reason to believe that was not the case.

She traded gifts with the Mewman princess and went past her to say hi to Marco, who seemed to be struggling with his own t-shirt. Apparently Star hadn't taken into account that the boy was a bit larger of frame than the two girls and had simply made all tees the same. But honestly, Marco looked hilarious with the t-shirt and Jackie was not about to criticize Star's gift, so she just reassured Marco on it a little bit. Marco took a lot of reassurance, but he was cute, so she didn't mind.

Moments later, they were all skateboarding towards the arena. Well, she was skateboarding, Star was on her cloud, with the skateboard between her and the pink floating puffy critter. But hey, if it worked, it worked, and Jackie had to admit it looked pretty cool. Marco was, well, a bit behind them. But maybe that was good. This was Jackie's chance to ask Star a few things alone.

Of course, before she could bring herself to say anything beyond small talk, Marco ran over some baby ducks.

\----

"So, Star, can I ask a random question?" Jackie finally worked up the courage to ask as they waited for Marco (and the ducks) to come out from the doctor's office. Sure, the doctor was a veterinarian, but she had agreed to look over his injuries too in a non-professional capacity, in case there was anything that needed someone else to look at him. "How do you feel about Marco?"

"What? What do you mean? I mean, he is my bestie!" Star reply had started in a note of shock, but ended cheerfully. After a pause she seemed to think a bit and add, "He is super awesome and you are a very lucky girl to have him. And he is lucky to have you too, of course!"

"Heh, Star, dude, I know. But well..." oh god, what was she saying? There was no way she was bringing this up, she just couldn't. "You two do a lot of stuff together, and have been to a lot of places, and have all sort of wacky cool adventures..."

"Awww. Yes, we do, sometimes. As friends, though! Best buds. That's us." The princess sounded nervous. Was she thinking that Jackie was accusing her of something? Or that she was being the jealous bitchy girlfriend that got between her boyfriend and his friends? Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. Star seemed to ponder for a while. "You know, Jackie, we can include you in our adventures too, if you want, of course... although it might get a bit weird, and a bit wild!"

"Well, I am fine with weird," Jackie managed to keep her cool. Understatement of the century. Right now, pink floating cloud or not, Jackie wondered if perhaps she wasn't so much weirder than Star, just based on the way she felt. "I mean, if you don't mind. If it's not weird to have me along."

"Whaaat? No way. Why would that be weird? That isn't weird. Not at all!" Star replied enthusiastically, although Jackie felt something was off. Maybe she imagined a twitch on the princess' left eye? "Marco would love it. You are always invited to tag along..."

"Then I do want to join you adventuring! Just some of the time, no pressure," Jackie said. It wasn't what she had wanted to ask. But it was close enough, for now. "You know something, Star?"

"Eh, what?" the princess replied reflexively.

"He is also very lucky to have you as well," Jackie said with a smile. She saw Star smile widely as well. But then, for a split second, she looked conflicted once more, almost... guilty. There was something Jackie was missing. She had thought Star might have feelings for Marco, but her reaction was off if that was simply the case. Maybe she and Marco had already done something she thought she ought to be ashamed of? But that couldn't be. Marco hadn't told Jackie anything that could have caused that, and the boy had the most transparent body language ever. He was literally too nervous to ever be capable of 'cheating'. So there was something else...

"The ducks will be fine!" explained the doctor, emerging through the back door, Marco walking all hunched up behind her. And with that, the conversation was over.

\----

Jackie hadn't had another opportunity to talk to Star about anything significant before they got to the concert. They had gotten along pretty well after that, and bonded over releasing the ducks back to the Echo Creek, well, creek. Star had the most funny stories about the place, and Jackie had to wonder if even half of it was for real. Magic or no magic, Star's stories sounded too incredible to be fully true.

Oddly enough, it was Marco who had felt a bit left out there. Jackie was sure that was at least in part because he was bummed over the accident with the ducks. Well, as always, plenty of reassurance did the job. As well as an impromptu group hug instigated by Star.

Now they were finally there, sitting down as the stage lit for their favorite band. Marco was excited like a little kid in a candy shop, and Jackie couldn't take her eyes of him while he fanboyed about the teen band. Hell, the boys on the stage were the kind of guy Jackie daydreamed about just a year or so ago, and now she was paying more attention to the 'Safe Kid' sitting beside her. Not that Justin Towers wasn't dreamy, but well, he had nothing on her Marco.

Her favorite song started and she took her boyfriend by the hand, picking him up to start dancing, "Whoo! Dance with me, Diaz!"

She didn't quite notice when Star grabbed Marco's hand. Or had it been the other way around? But somehow the three of them where soon bouncing to the rhythm. It was a bit weird, but not in a bad way. Then Marco turned away from her, and he and Star began lip syncing to the lyrics.

"It was no secret," Marco began.

"The way that we feel," Star continued.

"A love that's so pure."

"A love that's so real."

Jackie arched an eyebrow in surprise, but they weren't looking at her, and she wasn't about to interrupt them. Sure, the song was ostensibly, if only barely so, about friendship. But it was also about falling in love, romantic love, with your best friend, or at least that's how Jackie had always interpreted it. Despite Marco's protests, he and Star had a very strong kind of chemistry, one that didn't exactly spell friends. You needed to be blind not to see it, and Jackie always considered herself fairly good at observing people.

"You showed me your world and it felt like a sign."

Star had taken Marco outside of Earth, into other dimensions. Of course, she had also taken the whole school once, but him she took every week. What had she shown him? And, wasn't Marco showing Star Earth too?

"But you acted too slow and you ran out of ti-ii-me."

Jackie's eyes went wide. Did Marco not realize what he was saying? If Star did have a crush on him, even if he did not, then that was...

"And now we'll be..." they both sang as the reached the chorus.

"Just friends"

"We will be"

"Just friends"

Jackie wasn't sure what to feel. She held on to Marco's hand, but he wasn't there, not really. He and Star seemed to be in their own world and she was watching from the outside, moving to the beat. It was, strange.

"And now we'll be"

"Just friends"

Maybe they were. Maybe that was all. But, even as friends, there was something between the two of them inside of which Jackie would never be able to enter, whether she accompanied them adventuring or not. A closeness to their relationship that wasn't there for herself and Marco, even at their most intimate.

"Be just friends"

It was scary. No, it was terrifying. Jackie didn't feel jealous about Star. She couldn't. Marco was amazing, but yet she herself had only started noticing him this year, and, the reason she had noticed him, was Star. Star made Marco a different person, a more confident, happier, braver person. So, whatever they had, Jackie would never wish to take it from them. In a way, she wanted them to have more of it. But, she was also afraid. She was afraid that one day Marco would realize he had something with Star that was more important than what he had with her, that he would change his mind about what he had said two weeks earlier.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Star sang.

Then don't, Jackie thought.

"You didn't have a clue," Marco continued.

You both are clueless!

"So you went out and got busy," Star retorted.

Jackie's face flushed slightly. Maybe she was reading too much into the lyrics, but still, that was one way to put it.

"And found somebody new. New. New. New."

They seemed to go closer and closer as they sang that last line, almost as if they were about to turn to each other and kiss. This was too much. She had wanted to have a look into their... well, friendship, maybe? And is not that she didn't like what she saw, not exactly. But, this was too much, too early.

"And now we'll be"

"Just friends"

She pulled Marco towards her. Sweat running through her hands. She was chickening out. She had prodded Marco about liking Star, and Star about liking Marco. They both had denied it, while she had secretly hoped for confirmation. But now, now she wasn't sure that is what she wanted.

"Oh we will be, just friends"

Marco was dancing with her. Star had let him go without any trouble. She still held Marco's hand too, but like Jackie before, she was leaving the two of them alone and dancing on her own. Jackie's heart was hammering in her chest, she didn't let it show. She needed to reassure herself that Marco was hers, that he did love her. Right now, them singing the same song he had just sung with Star, Jackie's favorite song, wasn't enough. She felt the guitar solo start, and pulled Marco towards her. She put a hand on his chest, and kissed him. She needed reassurance.

Her lips pressed against Marco's, the heat of his skin was soothing. She had half expected Marco to be annoyed when she pulled him from Star, or for his mind not to be on the kiss. But it was. It felt just like when they were alone. It was not their most passionate kiss, but it was a caring, loving one. Jackie felt her worries melt away, and closed her eyes.

"Wow," Marco said when their lips finally separated. They both gazed lovingly into each other's eyes for a split of a second, and then... "Star?"

Star had gone away, and Marco ran after her. Strangely, Jackie was ok with it. She no longer felt worried about her boyfriend chasing down the stairs after his best friend. She considered following too. But then she realized why Star had gone away. Jackie felt guilty, very guilty. This wasn't the plan, Star and Marco had both invited her, and at best she had just made Star uncomfortable, and at worst... well, at worst the princess did have feelings for Marco, and Jackie had just rubbed salt on the wound. Not only that, she had done so just to reassure herself over the two of them singing a song together about simply being friends. Shit.

The last thing she wanted was for Star to hate her, or for them to stop hanging out all three together. Or, even worse, to cause a fight between Marco and Star. Jackie liked what the two of them had, she truly did, she had thought she could handle it even if the two friends had been in love, and yet she had felt overwhelmed by a freaking dance routine. So much for keeping her cool.

She saw the two of them talking. Star was smiling, she was pushing Marco to go back up. What would Jackie do when Marco came up? She could always play it as being clueless. Marco would just make some excuse for Star, and Jackie would pretend to believe them. She would also pretend that she had only kissed him because she was at a concert with her boyfriend and 'it just happened'. Meanwhile, Star was walking towards the exit now, removing herself from her own plans so that Jackie and Marco could be alone. Star was definitely a better person than she was, and Jackie never felt so small in her life.

\----

Star was trying her best not to cry, bottling up her frustration and the turmoil of jealousy within her. It was just a freaking kiss! Nothing at all when compared to what she had seen a few weeks before through the Seeing Eye spell. But it had been right in front of her, right while holding her hand. Well, what did she expect? She had arranged this whole thing, as an apology to Marco and Jackie. What, had she supposed that her bestie wouldn't want to kiss his date at a romantic pop music concert? Hell, she had almost tried to kiss Marco herself! Avoided it by her last thread of self control, actually, and she then had the audacity to get shocked when his actual girlfriend kissed him?

But the emotions raging through her were not rational. Star hurt, badly. She wanted Marco, and for a few minutes she had felt that the entire world was only the two of them. He had given her his hand, he had sung with her. Why couldn't he just have ignored her from the moment the song started playing!?

She lifted her wand, and let her fury and regret flow through it, visceral, uncaring for all his reasons and all her mistakes. A blast of green energy flew out from the tip of the cleaved wand, and the promotional sign for the concert went up in a fiery explosion.

This would be less painful if Marco Diaz had meant to hurt her. The fact that he had still cared enough to leave his date to try to make sure Star was ok somehow made it worse. If instead of her caring but clueless friend, Marco had just behaved like a straight up asshole, he would never have been able to wound her half as deeply!

"Wow, Starship. And they say I have anger issues..." Speak of the devil, literally.

"Fuck off, Tom!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey Tom...
> 
> Also, hope you all didn't all miss the smut too badly ;)


	5. What are Fiends for?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the devil gets its due, the princess surrenders her wand, and a small mistake makes nobody happy.

## Chapter 5: What are Fiends for?

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place immediately after the last one, meaning the night following the SvtFoE episode _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b). This story so far is considered compatible with SvtFoE season 2 events up to that point.

"Fuck off, Tom!" she growled at him. The three-eyed demon had just emerged from the concert arena, right behind Star. With little more than a thought, he dismissed the glamour that disguised him as a normal human teen and continued walking towards her. He knew this was a bad idea, particularly after their last meeting, but something seemed seriously off with Star. He had to know what was going on. She, however, didn't seem particularly appreciative of his concern. "When are you going to stop stalking me?!"

"Stalking you?! I am not..." Tom hadn't actually come to the concert to keep tabs on Star. In fact, he had been surprised to notice her as she ran down the stairs in the middle of the first and probably one of the best songs of the night. He had seen her stop right in front of the stage. He had seen Marco go after her. He had seen them hug and him go back up alone. Tom had noticed that Star had seemed, well, a bit strange, even after their hug, and decided to follow. Even he had failed to realize just how distressed Star truly was, until he watched her hex the sign to pieces.

So, well, he was honestly looking out for her well being here, and she responded by accusing him of following her around!? How dare she! Tom felt the anger flare up and counted to ten in his head. It was almost a reflex now a days, the year with Brian had helped him sense when he was getting angry and stop himself momentarily, until he could think properly. If only Star gave him even a little credit for that! Oh well, it wasn't like he hadn't given her reason to expect the worst from him. Now that he thought about it, better that Star believe that he was following her, it was easier to explain in any case. "I mean, I am not 'stalking' anyone, just, you know, keeping a friendly eye on you. Why else would I be at a Love Sentence concert, right?" he lied, nervously. "But hey, it is a good thing that I did, Starship, you look like you could use someone to talk to..."

"Not really in a talking mood," Star said coldly. She began walking fast away from the stadium. Tom followed a few meters behind her, cautiously. "Not in a mood for you at all. Never am, now that I think about it."

She didn't sound like Star. There was no energy behind her words, no enthusiasm and no indignation, just dispassionate annoyance. True, Star usually rejected his advances, often with far more emphatic denials. But this was different. When he saw how sad she had looked, Tom had considered testing his luck again, trying to comfort the princess with a shoulder rub and take it from there, maybe he could find a way to make both of them happier. There was a sharpness to her tone that told him that would not, in fact, be a good idea.

"Star, no tricks, no schemes. I am honestly worried about you. This doesn't sound like you," Tom tried, fully aware that he didn't sound like himself either. The truth was that he did care. Maybe his love for Star was a selfish one, but it was still love. This was not the Mewnian princess he knew and coveted.

"What, no speech about how I am terrible and should be with you because we are both garbage?" Star retorted, picking up the pace. "Because, you know, that's the way to charm a girl... 'you are evil, I am evil, let's make babies!'" she shouted, her previous indifference quickly replaced by fury, and yet the coldness remained. Normally, that kind of tone, coming from anyone, would have caused the underworld prince to incinerate the mortal who even dared speak to him like that. Under the circumstances, however, it was mostly just plain unsettling. Star had never been this angry. Even when they broke up she had been... well, she had avoided him for a while and then simply told him she couldn't keep dealing with his anger outbursts. She had never before intentionally used her words to hurt him, even when he himself did. Now Tom almost expected to see flames coming out of her instead.

"Starship, I am really sorry about that, I never meant it that way. You once had a thing for bad boys, and I just thought..." Tom was not used to being the gentle one. Star was impulsive, and she could be very direct, but she had never been mean. Sure, a few times in the past he had had to apologize to her and got immediately punched for it, but she usually got her anger out of her system with just one, usually symbolic, punch. Wait, that was it! "If you want to take out your anger on me a bit, I can deal, Star. You are probably right, I deserve it."

Star looked back at him, a murderous glare in her eyes. Tom did not know that glare. Toffee and his monsters had seen it once, right before Star freed Marco from a certain glass prison. But for Tom, it was new, and it scared him. Tom, who had seen that which lay below the foundations of the world, who had spoken face to face with the archangel of death himself, who had called upon the names of the unnamable, shuddered at seeing that expression on the face of Star Butterfly. She turned around again and continued briskly walking away. He followed in silence for what seemed like hours, but could have been just five minutes.

"You know, Tom, I am not angry at you. Well, let me rephrase that, I am angry at you, but this particular anger is not about you," she began, slowly, frozen words spoken in a voice as sharp as steel, "and it is not towards Marco or Jackie either. It is about me. For feeling this way, for not being able to be happy for my friend. For doing things I never should have, and for wanting to do even worse things. So, maybe you are right and Janna is wrong, maybe I am indeed a bad person."

"Star, you know that was me lying to you." Tom decided that coming clean on it would be better than having to see Star like this. "It was just me guilt-tripping you to get back together, just like you said. You are not a bad person. Come on, I'll prove it to you! If you truly are bad, then why aren't you taking your anger out on me? It would be easy, just blast me until you feel better or something! I would do it to you in an instant, you know that!" It was a lie, he would do it to anyone else, for sure, but not to Star.

"And, you believe I won't?" Star asked, surprised. Was she surprised at him, at what he was saying? Or was she surprised about herself, that she would not hurt him? Or, maybe, Tom realized, she was surprised that she was considering doing what he had suggested. Well, either way, if that snapped her from this state it was worth it.

"I know you won't," Tom lied.

Star turned around, fast as lightning. Perhaps she feared she wouldn't go through with it if she thought it through for more than an instant. She pointed her wand straight at Tom. She narrowed her eyes and in a moment they glowed bright emerald. Her cheekmarks shone as well, in the same unearthly hue. A huge spiraling blast of green and black left the wand and hit him squarely in the chest. He made no effort to block it or avoid it.

Pain shot through his body. This was nothing like being encased in ice or having his hand chopped off. It was probably not like getting blasted by narwhals or trampled by warnicorns either. Star's spells were brutal, but when she casted those, she mostly meant to win a fight, causing harm was only the necessary side-effect. Right now, though, she had meant to hurt him. Maybe she had even meant to kill him. It certainly felt that way. It was like being struck by lightning and immediately after that having your blood freeze and your skin turn to acid. He was sure there was burning fire and deadly poison somewhere in that spell too, but to those the demon was immune. He felt his nerves overload with agony, and then he felt his consciousness fade.

\----

Tom Lucitor opened his three eyes slowly. His body hurt all over. It hadn't hurt like this in a very long time. He saw the stone arch above him. Was he back in the underworld? No way! No, he was under a bridge. A small river flowed in front of him. He looked to his left. Star was there, sitting on her knees, eyes looking down, tears flowing from them. "S... Starship?"

"Tom! I am so so sorry! I don't know what came over me! I didn't mean to do that, not really." The demon prince knew that was a lie. You simply could not cast dark magic like that and not mean it. But he was not about to tell Star that right now. He also realized he had deserved it. He had tried manipulating Star time and time again, he had tried to get their souls bonded under the blood moon without her knowledge, he had once kidnapped and almost killed her best friend. In a way, it felt cathartic to feel that kind of anger and hate coming from her, a long awaited punishment.

"Star, no biggy. You needed to let that kind of anger out on someone. That's not the kind of hurt you want bottled inside of you. Believe me, I would know. Besides, I am not exactly fragile, and you knew that. I was the obvious target." Tom shrugged, then winced in pain from the effort. "How long was I out, though?"

"Well... no more than three or four..." Star looked to the sky nervously, then at her phone, "... hours."

What? Four hours?! What had that spell even been? Tom's eyes glowed red in annoyance, but the searing pain that shot as his muscles tensed snapped him out of it. "You... you are a lot stronger than I remember."

"Sorry," Star repeated, genuinely apologetic. She extended her hand and touched Tom's chin, who flinched in response, her eyes looked into his own with a worried expression. Star's eyes were puffy and red with crying. Over Marco? Or over him? "I would have tried to heal you, but I have never been able to do healing magic right."

"It doesn't matter, Starship. I heal fast," he assured her. It was true. If he was awake, then it meant that his internal organs had finished regrowing where needed, and mayor broken bones had mended, the rest should be a matter of minutes, really. In any case, no amount of physical damage could end him permanently. Tom was, for most intents an purposes, immortal. That said, that kind of thing did come with caveats he did not care to fully test. "Would you tell me now what has you so down? You owe me at least that... no, sorry, old habits, you don't have to tell me if you don't want," he corrected. He was being truthful. He also realized that if he were trying to guilt trip someone, he could have hardly done better than that.

"Well, we three were at the concert together and... Marco and Jackie kissed..." Star answered. They both blinked. Tom began laughing, his ribs ached like, well, like home, but he couldn't help it. He laughed a thunderous laugh. After a few moments of surprise and confusion, Star joined him.

"But you saw them have sex before!"

"Saw it? I felt it! I have seen Marco kiss every inch of Jackie Lynn Thomas with a shit eating grin on his face!"

"And you went Queen of Darkness over peck on the lips?"

"Yeah... well, a bit more than a peck, but still... just a kiss at a concert! Which I invited the two of them to. Well... except she didn't know it was me, I think. She thinks it was Marco's idea!"

"Marco's idea? Starship, he is a great guy and all, but he couldn't plan a romantic date to save his life. This Jackie girl obviously knows what's going on!"

"And what is going on? Besides me totally being an idiot, I mean?"

"Obviously, that you were trying to get her jealous when she saw how much Marco and you act like a couple!"

"Wait? What?! Marco and I don't act like a couple!" Star looked at Tom in surprise. He grinned at her. Oh my, could it be that Star really hadn't planned it like that? It was what he would do, if he were in her position. Well, in her position and able to keep his temper in check long enough. Go to the date as the third wheel, make ambiguous moves on the crush the whole night, wait for the girlfriend to get jealous, then play innocent and try to convince the boy that his date was being a bitch over nothing. It was, well, not quite the oldest trick in the book, but right up there. Star still looked dumbfounded. "So, so that's why Jackie pulled him over and kissed him? Because she thought I was making moves on him?"

"That's actually a pretty good block on her part," Tom noted. "But honestly, I don't know. Depends on what was actually happening there. So, you really were not planning anything of the sort?"

"No! No way! I would never do that!" Star looked at him first confused, then thoughtfully. "You think it would have worked?"

Tom shrugged, then smirked at Star. She seemed to be looking at him in a different way. She had stopped crying a while ago, and seemed, a bit nervous. Sometimes, her gaze was avoiding his even when looking in his direction. Then Tom looked down and saw, first his torso, then his stomach and lack-of-bellybutton, then his...

"Star! I am naked! Why am I naked? How long have I..." Tom realized that Star hadn't been avoiding his gaze. She had been sneaking a peek! Multiple peeks, actually. What the hell? Now she was into him?

"Sorry! Your clothes kinda got destroyed in the blast," she looked up and away, but Tom saw her cheeks brighten just a little.

"Starship, if you want to look, then look," Tom goaded her. He had no plan, no strategy. No scheme of his called for him to be naked and bruised under a bridge while Star chatted about her crush on the human boy to him. But you played the hand you were dealt, and he did not intend to be bashful little Marco about the whole situation. He was sure Star had been looking before.

She turned slowly again and began staring at him, shamelessly. He smiled at her, lifted his arms to the back of his head and spread his legs further apart. "Like what you see?"

"Yeah..." Star blanked. "No. Wait. I like Marco, and you and I broke up!"

"Well, Marco is not here, Starship. Actually, you said three or four hours, right?" Tom smiled at her maliciously. He didn't have a great hand, but he had one good card to play. "Bet you anything you care to name, right now Marco and Jackie are back from the concert, having all kinds of fun. Together. Alone."

Star seemed to get a bit sad again hearing that. Tom, however, wasn't done. "We two are here now, though. Together. Alone." He faked thinking out the matter for a moment. "As for us breaking up... I did not ask you to date me again, Starship. I only asked if you like what you see."

The Mewman princess blushed deep crimson, her cheekmarks glowing like tiny stars in the night. "Well, maybe, maybe I do..."

"So..." Tom suggested casually, "... how about we have some fun? I already helped relieve your anger. Perhaps I can give you other kinds of relief as well?"

"Ok," Star relented.

No, that was not correct; she agreed to his proposal, no tricks needed. Well, not yet.

"With one condition!" she added. Tom arched two eyebrows. "Don't call me Starship!"

"Fine!" Tom said, slightly annoyed at her vetoing his favorite pet name for her. "But I have one condition of my own: Say that you want me!"

\----

Star felt surprised to hear the demon's demand. Why ask her to say that, when she had already agreed to sleep with him? Oh, dammit, her mind was just now catching up to her mouth as she realized she had indeed agreed to sleeping with Tom. It was one thing to imagine it when gossiping with her friend, or alone in her room after that super confusing night the other time, but this was different, this was happening for real. Her blush expanded through her face as she replied. "Tom... I want you!"

She wasn't lying either, Star realized. Maybe having admitted that to Janna before made it easier to admit it to Tom, and to herself. He was hot, and she didn't mean it just in the literal sense either. Star had just been admiring his well defined chest and abs in that deliciously slender body of smooth purple skin. She had stolen many glances at his cock, semi-erect and shamelessly displayed for her gaze. He smirked at her and made no effort to conceal himself, his eyes looking directly at her face, narrowing ever so slightly, bright with a mysterious emotion, opaque windows to an inscrutable soul. Tom was enigmatic, and he was dangerous. It was the reason Star had dated him in the first place and the reason they had stopped being together as well. It was also the reason she still felt attracted to him, despite it all, despite how bad he was for her, or how bad they were together.

He slowly got up, leaning against the wall of the tunnel for support, keeping his clawed hand under Star's chin, pushing her to stand up as well. She felt the need to say something, before the inevitable. "Just to be clear, Tom. This is not about getting back together, and it is not about love."

Tom smiled at her, a sharp grin full of sharper fangs, "Starsh... Star. I am a demon. Do you think you have to explain these things to me?" His hand pressed against her chest for only a second. She felt a nipple harden against the fabric. Then Tom drew his hand away, extended two fingers and poked at Star's shirt. She didn't feel the claws touch her, but saw them go into the shirt. They burned two fiery holes on her custom concert tee, erasing the faces of Marco Diaz and Jackie Lynn Thomas. "This is about frustration. It is about getting even."

He drew nearer, breathing on her neck, his hot naked body pressing against her still clothed self. 'Still'? Star realized how much she was treating what was to come as a foregone conclusion now. She felt Tom's heat envelop her, his inhuman yet not at all unpleasant heat. Star hadn't quite noticed how cold the night air had been just a moment before, even in the California summer, or how much it bothered her. He whispered in her ear, "But I need this to also be about desire, Star. To be about need. I don't need you to love me, or even to like me, just to want me."

She blushed, and nodded. It was strange how much Tom had her figured out, when he was not blinded by a fit of rage. It was indeed about all those things. Tom had just reminded her a moment ago that Marco and Jackie were probably together now, doing something like this. She could feel in her heart that he was right. She needed someone tonight, she just couldn't stand to be alone while the boy she loved was with another. If she could have Marco, then she would have never agreed to being with Tom. But she couldn't. Marco was with Jackie. Tom was here, with her. She pushed her head backwards slightly, until she felt the demon prince's breath slide away from her neck. Then she moved forward again, stood on her toes, and hungrily kissed Tom against the wall. He grunted and winced as his shoulders impacted the stone, but still pushed himself forward as well, kissing back.

She pressed herself against him, eager to feel the heat. She parted her lips and felt his tongue go into her mouth, playfully fighting her own, pushing and retreating, dancing and fighting. She felt hands against her back, a comforting embrace. Then claws danced down her back, ripping her white concert tee to shreds. She pushed back slowly and felt the pieces fall to the ground.

"Sorry about that, Star. I hope you didn't want to keep that one?" Tom said in a serious tone. A smug smirk belied the insincerity of his apology.

"No, I didn't," Star replied, understanding the symbolism in the gesture, "and I have a skateboard you can incinerate later, too." Maybe she would change her mind later, but right now she wanted nothing from Jackie. "Let me take off the rest myself, though. I don't think I want to walk home from here naked."

Tom's eyes went wide for a moment, then he laughed. "Star, we both know you could magic up some clothes afterwards. But that is quite the mental image."

Star looked down at Tom's hard-on and smiled. She wondered if that was her words or the kiss. "Well, I still like these clothes." She was wearing a light blue dress and tights, not her favorite outfit, but also not one she wanted to go up in flames.

"Ok, Star. Then do that. Undress for me!" Tom commanded her more than asked her, leaning against the wall once more. Star felt herself go red with embarrassment. She thought back to the night she had seen Marco and Jackie do this. She remembered how confident the skateboarder girl had been when undressing for Marco and wondered if she could even put up such a display for Tom, or for anyone else. Was Jackie undressing for Marco right now? Sliding the concert tee Star made and her own green and white top off her head with a swift self assured movement? Star imagined she was. She could imagine it very vividly. It made her blood boil.

She pushed her boots off from her feet, and forcefully yanked the dress above her head, throwing it to the concrete floor. She knew it hadn't been graceful or sexy, but Tom didn't seem to mind, he was looking hungrily at her chest. Star could only wonder if right now Marco was looking at his girlfriend's much larger breasts with a similar expression. She knew he was. She could almost see it.

"Star, you are beautiful..." Tom began. But she raised a hand, cutting him off. That was not the kind of words she wanted now, not from Tom at least. She pulled down her tights until she was standing in front of her ex-boyfriend in only a pair of cotton panties with a golden star in the middle. Tom seemed to regard her expression for a moment, then he smiled and switched gears.

"Ok, Star. So you are now naked, outside, at night, under a bridge, with a naughty, evil, demon," he pushed himself up from the wall with both hands and advanced towards her. His eyes fixed on her chest, small flames dancing on his claws. "What exactly is that you said you wanted?"

"You," Star said, trying to put all her conviction in her voice. She knew her cheekmarks were literally glowing now, with both embarrassment and anticipation. She let Tom advance on her. She let him grab her by the hands and guide her back to the wall. Except this time, he pinned her against it, holding her arms above her head. She held on to her wand. She could feel the cold concrete on her back, but also the warmth from Tom's body pressing against her from the front. She felt his kisses on her neck, then light bites, then a painful but exciting sucking sensation on the right side.

"Star, put the wand on the floor," Tom said as he let her go. She hesitated for a moment. Tom grinned at her. "What, you mean you don't trust me?"

Star felt cold as Tom retreated two steps back, giving her space to kneel down and deposit her wand safely on the ground, carefully setting it away from both of them and from the creek which passed under the bridge. She did as he wanted. "No. I don't," she replied as she walked back to the wall were she had been just moments before and raised her arms above her head. She grinned at Tom. "I don't trust you one bit."

The demon walked towards her again and once more closed his claws around Star's wrists, holding her in place. "You know, Star? Without that wand of yours you are entirely at my mercy. I can do to you right now. Whatever. I. Want." he whispered in her ear. It was not true, Star knew, she could always go deep down if she really needed to, and overpower Tom with or without the wand. Yet, for some reason, being at Tom's mercy, at least for now, was a strangely exciting thought for her.

It helped that what he wanted to do to her seemed to be to slowly kiss down her collarbone until reaching her chest. Tom's tongue was hot and soft and it felt incredible as it started tracing little flicks on her small mounds, making her wait in agony for those moments when it quickly darted for her hard nipples, before retreating again to explore the flesh around it. Soon those touches became more frequent, and moments after she felt the unearthly warmth of the demon's breath as he easily took her right breast into his mouth and began sucking on it, swirling his tongue around its center. Star opened her mouth and a loud moan escaped into the silent night.

Were Marco and Jackie also doing this right now? Star was sure they were. She could practically see them in Jackie's bed, his face buried in the other girl's far more developed rack. She shook her head. Then she had an idea. Star closed her eyes. She begun to imagine that the kisses in her chest came from Marco, that the tongue around her nipple was Marco's. She moaned once again. She had already been hot and bothered, but for some reason, imagining Tom as Marco made it even more intense. She felt her wetness spread through the cotton panties.

A hand went into her underwear and a finger began cautiously exploring her entrance. Marco's finger, she thought, lying to herself. She opened her legs and lowered herself slightly on the wall to give him better access. She felt a finger go in and out a few times, then arch up, touching something inside her that made her whimper. She felt her strength leave her legs and opened her eyes in surprise. She saw Tom, not Marco, grinning at her, holding her up with just one hand. She blushed hard.

Tom drew his other hand up to show it to the princess. She hadn't even noticed when he let go of her left arm. Tom's fingers were drenched in her juices. He lifted them up to his mouth and licked them clean. "You taste so sweet... and innocent." Tom smiled malevolently.

"Hey, you take that back!" Star retorted, in mock offense. She lowered her now free hand and closed it around the demon's cock. She pumped him up and down a couple of times. "Still think I am innocent?"

"Y... yes. Yes, I do," Tom replied hoarsely. He raised two eyebrows. "Do you want to prove me wrong a second time today?"

"Of course I do." Star smiled, with a mixure of genuine interest and feigned confidence.

"Then, Star..." Tom smiled at her, a nasty yet hopeful smile, "... get on your knees."

Star blinked for a moment, not understanding. Then, a second later, she got it, "Oooohhh..." she looked around nervously. She ought to have expected this, of course, but, then again, she had never done that before. Ok, once in a dream. But dreams were weird, and it had felt different, like she always knew what to do there. Was she really trying that, for the first time, with Tom? Then she saw it, a small wooden box two meters or so from where they were. "Ok, Tom. You got it. But you have to sit... there!" she pointed at the box.

Tom looked at her with a puzzled expression, but he let her go and, without further question, proceeded to sit himself on the wooden crate. He smirked at her, daring her to come to him. Star was pretty sure that was the same box Marco had been sitting on earlier on the day, when the three of them had come to release the ducks. Which meant this was the same bridge. It was perfect. She walked up to the front of the box, she knelt on the cold cement in front of it. She opened her mouth, she thought of what she had seen Jackie do a few weeks ago and about what she herself had dreamed doing, she imagined doing this to Marco.

Star was taking her best friend's penis in her mouth, or at least half of it. She tried pushing her lips further down, but failed. Instead, she began running her tongue over the head. Then going up and down, lubricating it with her saliva. Slowly, she found that she could take more and more of it without gaging. She pushed her lips further together and alternated moving her tongue around and flicking it below the member. She imagined herself doing this for Marco. She wanted to do well for him, to have him enjoy it. She wanted to be better at this than Jackie. Why was she still thinking of Jackie? She could imagine the two of them, though, in vivid Technicolor in her mind, Jackie Lynn Thomas expertly sucking Marco's dick as he laid in her bed and the boy squirming in pleasure under her ministrations. It wasn't fair!

Star felt two hands push her head against Marco's lap, fixing her in place. She kept doing what she was doing, thinking only of making her bestie feel as good as possible. Ignoring the voice in the back of his mind that reminded her where or with whom she was. She could hear her best friend grunt and moan with satisfaction, see his expression of pleasure. Watch him tense up with the inevitable approaching climax, and explode completely... in Jackie's mouth. She saw the cool girl give Marco a satisfied grin and swallow. Star hated that grin! Then she felt something flood her own mouth, something bitter and thick that dribbled down the corner of her lips. She heard Tom's voice, "Whoa, Star. Not bad for the first time!"

A claw ran along her chin. "Now, now, Star, don't waste it. Swallow properly. You wanted to prove you are not too innocent, right?" Star felt annoyed, and sad. But it mostly wasn't Tom's fault. She did as asked and quickly gulped down the demon's cum. She felt it, warm and sticky, going down her throat. It honestly wasn't that bad of an experience, but it certainly wasn't an enjoyable one either.

There was something wrong with her imagination. She had meant to imagine Tom as Marco, which, ok, wasn't really the kindest thing to do to the boy currently with her, but, well, that wasn't the issue. The question was why Jackie kept popping in her head as well, and why it all seemed so, so real? Sure, Star's imagination was pretty good at painting vivid pictures. But this was something else, she could had sworn she had seen Jackie blowing Marco. She had felt it too, sort of. In a weird way she had felt his pleasure. Not like she was orgasming too when he did, well, when his fantasy of Marco did, but she knew exactly how he had felt.

"Well, well, I stand corrected," Tom said, looking down at Star with a pleased expression. Wait, what was he talking about? Oh, right, their whole 'innocent' thing, their obvious game of chicken. Ok, Star, focus, you are with Tom now. He is no Marco, but imagining otherwise is just turning up super confusing anyways, and even less fun. So let's stop fantasizing, ok?

"You should have let me known you were about to do that!" Star said, honestly a bit bothered, if not very surprised. Tom shrugged unapologetically, then began running his hands along her face, arms and breasts. It felt good, not really that strong sexually, but soothing. She felt and saw traces of flames linger wherever the demon touched. Two hands went under her armpits and tried to pull her up. Tom grunted and gave up.

"Star. Climb on me, please," Tom asked. Not seeing why not, Star complied, removing her underwear before straddling the demon boy. She was soon sitting on his lap, facing him. Tom started kissing her again. Apparently the prince of the underworld didn't care what had been in her mouth before either. He reached back with his hands and Star felt a surge of pain and pleasure shoot through her. It started near her shoulders, teasing her wings, and surged back towards her lower back, caressing her backside, going under her to lap her folds. She knew she was enveloped in fire, and that the fire was caressing her skin, all of it, and her insides. It did so gently, but it was still fire. It could not but hurt, but it did not harm her, and with the light pain, it also brought heat and pressure, and gratification.

Star lost track of time as she let Tom's magics pleasure her. It was not as intense as even his fingers had been, not in any given point of her body, whether inside or outside. But it was pervasive and constant, and slowly bringing her higher and higher. When he was done, she could barely think straight. Tom, Marco, it didn't matter, she needed someone. She needed someone in her, right now!

"So, what did you say you want?" Tom asked, almost mocking her. She only grunted in response, but he seemed not to mind. He lifted her with some visible effort and slid himself under her. Star felt something press inside her crotch, she parted her legs to give it access. Barely aware that, as it pertained to a real, flesh and blood, boy, this was her first time.

It hurt, but only a little, only at first. Not that much more than the flames had hurt. Then she felt movement, and pleasure, and need. Tom pushed her up and down as he went in and out of her, without noticing, she began to push herself up and down as well, atop him. He grunted, shouted something she could not quite hear and pushed her down to the ground. His own body followed, inside of her. She impacted the pavement and she barely noticed. The crate broke and splintered under them and she barely noticed. Star withstood harder hits than that every other day in battle. The only thing she noticed was the emptiness in her when Tom withdrew from inside her, and the ecstasy as Marco entered her again.

She was seeing Marco again, not Tom. Feeling Marco inside her, like it should have been. She was happy. Her senses overwhelmed, her mind clouded. She saw his smile, his big brown eyes looking down at her, she smiled back. Jackie smiled back. Wait, what? Reality seemed to split then for Star, she was experiencing a single thing, but it was something that was happening in two places at once.

She was outside, under a bridge, naked on the cold concrete path, her back pushing pieces of wood as Tom fucked her with animal hunger, eyes glowing red with a feeling that was not anger but also, in some way, was. She did not hate that, it felt strong and raw and wild. It was exciting, it was transgressive, it was payback. She was also on a soft bed, hands caressing her, Marco's mouth kissing her lips as he made love to her in a dim lit cozy room. Except there she was sometimes Star, and sometimes Jackie, and sometimes she was Marco too, feeling the warm bliss inside his lover's body. She enjoyed that, it felt comforting, loving, intimate. It was beautiful, it was passionate, it was solace.

Soon it all dissolved together. The hard concrete floor. The soft bed. The transgression. The comfort. The payback. The solace. Tom's desire. Marco's love. Jackie. Tom. Marco. Star. Tom. Marco. Jackie. Star. She felt it all blend into the white noise of overwhelming climax.

"Staaar!" she heard Tom grunt, hungrily.

"Maaarco!" she heard Jackie moan, joyously.

"Staaar!" she heard Marco shout, lovingly.

"Maaarco!" she heard herself cry out, wishfully.

Star opened her eyes. She was back outside, in the cold night, under the stone bridge, against the hard cement and broken wood. Three blood red eyes glared at her with apocalyptic fury. She saw the fire flare up and sideways, blackening the stone of the arch, burning the remains of the crate and her discarded clothes. The flames lit up the night, they consumed everything around them, except for where she was. She knew these were not caressing flames, these burned with rage and contempt. Tom was holding them back from her.

"Star... I had one request. Just one. Just for tonight," Tom said with a forcefully restrained calm tone. Then, he begun shouting. "Just. This. One. Time!" The flames went from red, to orange, to yellow, and even though they remained far from Star, she could feel the heat. She eyed her wand, far away from her, too far to reach. She tried to go deep, but her mind was in turmoil. She could not summon all of herself, not now.

"What did you said you wanted?!" he asked. She could feel the indignation, but also the pain, in his voice. She couldn't answer. "Who did you say you wanted?!" No answer. "Just for tonight! Just this once! I let you take your anger on me! I offered relief! I did everything to please you! Was it too much to ask for you to be mine for just a few moments!?"

Star closed her eyes. Normally she would have at least tried to kick him of her, to defend herself, but she felt exhausted. She waited for the flames to burn. They never did. She opened her eyes moments later, to see Tom limping away from her, getting away on the far side of the tunnel. Wait, limping? Was he still hurt from her spell? Had he been hurt the entire time? Had he done, all of what he did, while in pain?

Star scrambled to her feet and ran to grab her wand. She thought of going after Tom. To do what? Apologize? 'Hey, sorry I shouted Marco's name when we had sex, hope you don't mind, since you are in love with me and all' Yeah, right. She felt the night air around her. When had California gotten this cold? The only warmth she felt, came from something fiery and sticky, running down her leg.

\----

"Staaar!" she heard Marco shout, lovingly. It hit her like a punch to the gut.

"Marco?" Jackie asked. She felt surprise and hurt mix into her voice. The weight of his body on top of her felt oppressive. Just a second ago it had been comforting and reassuring, now it was just heavy. She saw him blink twice, confused. Did he not realize what he had just said? In their most intimate moment together? The girl felt her cool exterior crack, she could feel her eyes wetting, a tear sliding down her cheek. Jackie saw the horror of realization in Marco's face as he pushed himself off her. He sat on his knees on her bed, looking at her, unsure what to do. He lifted a hand to cover his mouth. It was much too late for that. She looked away from him, maybe facing her bedroom wall would make this conversation easier. "Marco, we need to talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I think Earth is a pretty gre-at place._   
>  _That's saying something, 'cause I've been through outer space._   
>  _I think it suits me, it's just my style._   
>  _I think I'm gonna stay a little while._   
>  **... ;)**


	6. A Tale of two Set-ups

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which most things, but certainly not all, turn out according to plan, and Star and Marco spend a night together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be warned this is a long-ass chapter (no, not a long ass-chapter, you pervs!). It is almost half the size of the previous five chapters put together, which are already much longer than what I believe is the norm for this site. I considered breaking this up into 2 or even 3 chapters, but that would have meant not including a smut scene at all, and I remember how _that_ went down the last time, so, well, long-ass chapter it is... enjoy ;)

## Chapter 06: A Tale of two Set-ups

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place the day after the SvtFoE episode _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b). At the end of this chapter, the story will have begun to diverge from the SvtFoE season 2 mainline in ways that have yet to be fully explained.

Tom counted to fifty in his mind. Then he counted to fifty again, and again. It didn't matter, the inferno inside of him raged on. He had been mad with fury since he realized Star had been imagining herself with another. He had been ready to let his rage fall on her. To hurt her like she had hurt him.

Twice that day she had struck him. The first time it had been so painful he thought he would die, that he would cease to exist. It was an almost alien thought for one such as him. The second time had been much much worse. He felt like something in him had actually died that night. Yet he hadn't been able to bring himself to make Star die with it as well.

The strange thing was, up to that point, up to that last second, that last cry, he had been happy. He had had Star, in the way he had wanted her for over a year, in the way he had pictured since so long ago. He had thought she wanted him. Maybe she did not love him, but for a night, maybe she could want him. In that last moment, though, he realized he never had her, and she would never truly want him again, not even for an instant.

He dragged himself back to the now empty and dark stadium, to the parking lot where a carriage pulled by an undead horse awaited. He had all the time in the multiverse to process what had just happened. He would talk to Brian about it if need be. Although, right now, Tom couldn't imagine himself saying a word of this to anyone, trained professional or not. For now, getting home was enough. He opened the door and climbed inside the hearse-like vehicle, only to notice a stranger sitting in his favorite chair - his throne, if you will. 

"So, how did your date with the princess go? Got any action?" a dark haired girl wearing a green beanie asked him casually. She looked him up and down. Tom realized he was still naked and growled in annoyance. "Seems to me like you did. Good for you!"

"Get out of here mortal, before I obliterate you!" Tom saw red. Flames lit the room as he made his threat. The girl merely looked directly at him and blinked twice, very slowly, unimpressed.

"Janna," she corrected him. "This mortal is named Janna, prince Tom." How did she know who he was? "I was just leaving anyway," she shrugged. "But first, maybe I can tell you how I think your date went. OK?"

Tom considered blasting her into the depths of the abyss for her insolence. But then, he realized, no one, not even he or Star knew they were going to meet that night, and Star couldn't have told this girl about their 'date' before he got here. There was something very strange going on. "Star and I weren't on a date, we ran into each other..."

"...at the Love Sentence concert, I know," Janna interrupted him. "You attended the concert because you are secretly a huge fan of Earth boy bands, which is something you consider a dark shameful secret of sorts. There is a signed photo of yourself with Justin Towers in, well, probably that cabinet," she pointed to it, accurately. "You spotted Star as she was leaving the concert alone, looking dejected, and decided that it was your perfect chance to get into her royal knickers if only you found a way to cheer her up. She told you she got beaten to her crush by another girl and you, selflessly, offered yourself as a replacement." She laughed bitterly at that last part. "Surprising even you, she accepted without much prodding and you two bumped uglies. Say, in a park somewhere? Except, when it was all over and done, she gently clarified to you your role as the rebound guy and told you, gently again, to get lost." She paused and looked at him straight in the eyes. "How am I doing so far?"

"A little too well," Tom replied. His eyes narrowing in suspicion. Anger seemed to give way to puzzlement and the strange sensation that he had, somehow, been played. Only one way to find out for sure, though: keep the girl talking. "But you are wrong on the last part. We did not talk afterwards. She... she yelled Marco's name as she... finished."

Janna gave Tom a strange look, then seemed to be suppressing a laugh. "Wow, that had to hurt!" she remarked. "There's no accounting for taste, I guess. I mean, Marco is a fine boy and all, but going for that instead of well..." She looked him up and down again and licked her lips. "What is Star even thinking?"

Tom would never let it show, but the words soothed his ego a little bit, even coming from a stranger. He noticed that said stranger was a fairly attractive human girl, of around Star's age, which was also in her favor. Surely nothing special in the grand scheme of things, compared to the Mewman princess, but attractive on a more simple - normal, was perhaps the word? - level. Unfortunately, she would not be around to compliment him much longer.

"Well, now that I have told you about that, I hope you do realize I have to kill you," he mentioned casually. In fact, it was the only reason he had felt free to discuss his humiliation with the stranger. Dead girls only told tales when he wished them to do so.

"Sure, sure, you definitely could do that," Janna replied calmly, seemingly not at all bothered by her imminent demise, "or you could get back at Star."

Get back at Star? Tom hadn't realized how much he wanted that, until the strange girl brought it up. Yeah, she had hurt him twice that day. Granted, he had thought the first time actually made them square, balanced out what he had done to her in the past. But that also meant the second time was completely unjustified. Tom deserved revenge. Well, it couldn't hurt to hear what the girl was going to say, especially if he was going to incinerate her afterwards anyways. "How?"

"Mmm, dunno. Lots of options. If I were you I'd simply try to make her jealous somehow, make her realize what she missed on, what she discarded," Janna began, perilously prodding at his ego. "I mean, look at the facts. Evidence indicates she only notices the guys in her life after they are taken by someone else. Don't tell me you don't see that? Over half a year of 'Marco and I are just friends', then Jackie asks him out and suddenly Star wants the D...iaz. Meanwhile, you are following after her like a lovesick puppy, and of course she feels you are worthless! It is a clichè so old the pharaohs probably complained about it!"

Tom reflected on her words. They sounded true. There was definitely a type of girl like that. But he didn't think Star worked that way. Maybe he was wrong? Blinded by love, had he perhaps misjudged her?

"What you have to do, Tom, is find someone else. Preferably someone from Star's life, so that she cannot forget you exist. The closer the better," Janna continued, there was an almost hypnotic quality to the girl's voice now. "Hey, I know!" She conspicuously pretended to just figure something out. Tom had done that often enough to recognize when someone else was pulling that trick on him, still, he listened. "How about her best friend?"

"Marco?!" Tom asked, disgusted.

"Well, that would be hot," Janna observed with a chuckle. "But I was thinking about her best girl friend." She made an obvious dramatic pause. "Oh, what a coincidence, I just realized... Star's best girl friend is, well... me." The last word had sounded almost like a question, yet it conspicuously wasn't one.

Tom's eyes widened. So that was the girl's game? Well, she was cute, and she might be fun for a date or two, especially if she could actually help him make Star even a bit jealous. Wait a second! "If you are truly Star's best friend, why would you help me make her jealous?"

"Maybe I find it fun. Maybe I am a bad friend. Maybe you are just that hot. Maybe I have ulterior motives I can't yet tell you about," she listed calmly, counting with her fingers. "One or more of those."

"How do I know you really are a close friend of Star? She never mentioned you," Tom retorted.

"Well, I knew about your night, didn't I?" Janna explained like it was obvious, and the demon felt a bit slow to not have figured it out before. "Whom other than a close friend could have arranged all those happy coincidences?"

"Wait, what?! Arranged? You planned this?!" Tom's eyes went red with rage once more. "Are you saying that you not only knew what happened, but knew it before it happened, because you planned it?!"

"Point Tom," Janna replied, amused. He again had to pause to wonder how much she knew, which was probably the whole point of making that obvious reference. It gave him time to count to ten in his head once more.

"But, how?" Tom honestly couldn't conceive how anyone would know he was going to be at the concert, or predicted his interactions with Star this well.

"Mmmm... do you consider yourself a living soul, Tom?" she asked.

"Not really. Not exactly living. Don't really got the other thing either." What kind of question was that, though? "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Then maybe one day I will explain it to you," she winked at him.

"So, wait, you are telling me, that you somehow contrived a scenario where Star would get her heart broken, run into me, decide to have a one night stand with me, and then completely and utterly humiliate me!?" Flames exploded out of every pore of his body. He saw the girl flinch, just a little bit. But then he realized he was missing something: motive. Sure, someone who could plot something like that was impressive, but no one went to those lengths unless they had something to win. He was sure she had told him what it was she wanted already, too. The final piece clicked in his head. "You manipulated your best friend into a dark enough place to do something she normally wouldn't do, to hurt me to the point to which I would seek vengeance. Then you have been pulling and prodding at those desires for revenge this entire conversation. Playing me to... to... to convince me to go out with you?!"

"You got me there." Janna lifted both palms in the air. "Honestly, I thought we would already be mid date by the time you figured it all out, you are a lot more perceptive than Star or Marco make you out to be. But the real question is: did it work?"

"Honestly? That's pretty fucked up..." Tom said with a serious face, then grinned at her, "...and I have never felt more flattered in my life. Ok, you know what? You win. One date, in exchange for your honest effort at making Star jealous. Truly, you got my attention, now let's see how long you can keep it."

"Let's see how long you can keep mine," Janna retorted mockingly. "But, how about you pick me up tomorrow night at, I don't know, seven O' six. Right now is late, and you are a mess and smell of Star. I don't think I am quite into that," she shrugged.

"Fine." Tom retorted, slightly annoyed that she was still controlling their interaction. He definitely needed to go back home and think a lot of things through before any new dates, though, so it wasn't exactly a bad idea to wait till the next day. Tomorrow might even be too soon, but what the hell, going out with this crazy chick was definitely better than mopping about Star in the underworld. Janna hopped from his chair and started heading out of the carriage. He realized he hadn't given her a way to call him, and he didn't know how to find her either. "Wait! There is something I need to give you first!"

"No worries! I already got them," Janna shouted from the parking lot, waving a tiny bell and a little hammer. She turned to run away. Tom sighed in confusion and, with an exasperated gesture, ordered his ride to go to hell. Home, sweet home.

\----

It was late in the afternoon the next day, and Star had not left her room. She had arrived through the window last night, clad in a hastily conjured gray cloak. She had tried to magic up a copy of her old outfit, but for some reason that's how the spell came out. She put the ragged ugly thing on and summoned cloudy. Even the usually friendly cloud seemed gray and depressed, with a slight green tint to it. It hadn't gone haywire or anything, it just didn't talk to Star at all as it dragged her back to the Diaz's place. That was fine, Star wasn't in a mood to talk either.

She had felt so tired, but still, she forced herself to get under the shower. The water flowing down her face hid her own tears, as they slid down her cheekmarks. She felt dirty in some undefined way, in a way the water falling on her would not clean. She knew it was ridiculous. She was not usually ashamed of her decisions, even when they got her into trouble, and it had been her decision to sleep with Tom. It had even been fun at times, especially when she had imagined Marco instead. She had mostly enjoyed herself; until the end, when it all came crashing down. Yet, she knew she regretted it. She tried to figure out what exactly she regretted. Doing it with Tom? That it had been her first time? That she had been thinking of Marco? Hurting Tom? Betraying Marco?

She had been surprised at her last thought. Of course she was not betraying Marco. Marco wasn't her boyfriend, he was Jackie's. Nonetheless, even after she finished showering, even after she had gone to bed, even after she woke up the next day, she could not get rid of that foolish thought. Now it was the end of the afternoon and she was still thinking it. She felt even sillier for it.

She was hungry. She had snuck in a box of cereal and snacked on it through the morning, but now she was not in the mood for more cereal. The Diaz family had called her down to eat, both at breakfast and at lunch, knocking on her door or shouting her name. She hadn't answered, and they had mostly let her be. That was at least an advantage of the Diaz household. Back in Mewni her mother would have dragged her out of her room to some royal function or another, or order that she be dragged out by servants. Of course, back in Mewni she could also have had run away to the Forest of Certain Death and hid there the entire day. She thought of running away now, maybe go to the Bounce Lounge or even visit Ponyhead in St. O's. But, she realized, the only scissors she had access to here were in Marco's room. He was the last person she wanted to talk to right now, even to ask for them.

Just then, as if on cue, she heard three quick and forceful knocks on the door. "Ok, Star, I am sorry, I don't know what's the matter, but I need to talk to you!"

"Marco, go away! I don't want to talk right now!" Star shouted back through the locked door. He had come up six times already that day. First when he got home early in the morning, and most recently just an hour ago. Each time more insistent than the last. Each time she told him to go away, and he reluctantly let her be. It was not really true that she didn't want to see Marco, it was more like she couldn't face him. Would he ask about last night at the concert? Or about what was going on with her? He sounded concerned, and hurt, but how could she explain to him what had happened? There was no way Star could tell Marco about how she had felt when she saw him kiss Jackie. There was even less chance that she would be able to talk about what had happened with Tom.

"Star, you don't have to talk about anything if you don't want to," Marco insisted. "Look, I am worried about you, my parents are worried about you, and I would really like to know what is bothering you." No, Marco, you really wouldn't. "If you need something, or if I can help, please, please let me know. But if you don't want to talk, then don't talk. But I. Still. Need. To. Talk. To. You."

He had put a lot of force behind that last sentence, and emphasized the "I" and "to you" parts. Star blinked for a moment, peering out of the bed sheet that she had bundled herself into as she sat in a corner of her room. Wait, so Marco wanted to talk about something other than what was going wrong with her? She wasn't sure if that made her feel relieved or hurt.

"Star, Jackie and I got into a fight last night..." she heard him say. Marco sounded genuinely distraught. Something pinched at the princess' heart. She felt guilt pooling around her like a cold mist. Guilt at not being there for her friend, or guilt about Tom? Or guilt that she secretly had, for a split of a second, felt happy that Marco and Jackie were fighting, before realizing that must be horrible for her friend? It was so infuriatingly hard to pick her feelings apart right now!

"Give me a second, Marco," she answered after a brief pause. It didn't matter how she felt, because all of her was in agreement on one thing: if she failed to be there for him now, she would forever regret it. She walked to her bed slowly, took the wand from under the pillow. "Radiant Shadow Transform!" she shouted, conjuring an outfit for herself. She hadn't bothered to dress yet that day. The spell fell short of its usual level of fashion forwardness, but nonetheless Star found herself dressed in a fairly decent plain black dress and white leggings. "Defensive Gate Withdrawal!" she yelled without much enthusiasm. The giant padlock and portcullis vanished from her bedroom door. "Ok, you can come in now. What happened?"

\----

Janna had to admit to herself she was nervous that afternoon. She was never nervous, either about mischief or about boys. Sure, her courtship techniques might have lacked a certain finesse, but she had never exactly been shy in front of boys she found attractive. In fact, she usually managed to put them in the more uncertain position. It helped that the only men who truly managed to leave her speechless had been dead and buried long before she was born. It was hard to feel insecure with Keats, when she could only reach him through the pages of a book, his words to her already set in place where her response to them would not taint their truth. After that, it hardly mattered what opinion flesh and blood boys might have of her. It was not that she was not interested in a few select cases, but if they did not reciprocate, well, it was no big concern of hers.

Tom was different. Tom was not human. He was a mystery not the way the silent hunk at a party was a mystery; that is, in that the only mystery was what you had to do to get him to open up, and immediately reveal himself to be as boring as any of a dozen more idiots her age. Marco was interesting, to an extent. He had been outside of this dimension, apparently once for sixteen years straight. He had had a demon bound to his arm. Janna felt a tingle remembering how it had felt when she was holding the eldritch appendage. Star was mysterious too, of course. The magic that she took for granted fascinated Janna. Even compared to them, her date tonight was a whole different deal. Tom was not a human, or a Mewman, or a handsome stranger from some random foreign dimension. He was a demon. He was mysterious like the night is mysterious or like death is mysterious.

Now, Janna was not fooling herself. At least she did not believe she was. She knew Tom was a jerk, an anger-management disaster, a manipulative bastard, a ticking time-bomb, and, perhaps worst of all, a guy that very often acted just like a moody human teenager. Nonetheless, there was definitely a lot more to that particular teenager than there was to any of the idiots at her school. Tom was also very dangerous, a taste Janna realized she shared with her best friend Star.

She had fished the only truly presentable item from her wardrobe: a vintage dark green dress with knee-height skirt and a black velvet trim. She had gotten it at a thrift shop months ago and never wore it. In fact, the only reason she had taken that particular dress home, other than the color, was the the owner had told her some lady had died in it and that was why it was so discounted. She would have paid double for that! Ok, well, she shoplifted it either way, but it was the thought that counted.

She completed her look with green heels and a black chocker with a ceramic skull in the middle. Hopefully that look would not be out of place wherever Tom intended to take her out on a date. The underworld, most likely, she thought with an excited shiver.

Janna looked at her phone. Six forty-five, still some time before she planned to ring up her ride. She wondered how the rest of her little plan was going. She was sorry about what she had had to put Star through, but she knew her friend would forgive her after it all resolved for the best. The truly unfortunate thing is that she herself could not be around to see Marco's face when it all fell into place. The boy should be beyond himself with excitement right about now!

\----

"I really don't know where to start, Star," said Marco gloomily, as he sat in the bed beside an equally downcast Star. They both stared at the floor for a while, sitting there together, as close as they could get without touching each other. Star's mind was still a jumble of awful thoughts. She wanted to break through it, to be there to comfort her friend, but she simply couldn't.

"Do you want to tell me what the fight was about?" she ventured the question, glancing in his direction.

"Well, after you left the concert," Marco began. Star flinched. "Sorry, maybe I should skip some of it. The concert doesn't matter. Unless you want to talk about it?" Star kept quiet. "Ok, so, anyways, after the concert Jackie and I went over to her place, to you know, say goodnight and stuff." Even bummed as she was Star couldn't help but to chuckle a little bit at Marco's comment.

"'Say goodnight', Marco? You got back this morning. That must have been some long good night," she chided. Marco blushed, but then seemed sad for some reason. Star regretted her joke almost immediately.

"Ok, well, so, Star, just to be clear, you know what people who are dating and, well, are attracted to each other, do, right? When they spend the night together, I mean?" Star blinked at this. Was he asking if she knew what sex was? "You see. At least on Earth, boys and girls are a bit different, in that the boys have a..."

Star began laughing, despite herself. There was some bitterness to the laugh, but it was overpowered by the sheer amusement at how innocent her bestie's mental picture of her seemed to be. "Marco! We fuck on Mewni too!" she shouted at him. Her cheekmarks immediately lit up, and then she felt a cold pang of regret remembering the previous night. "I mean, I don't mean I have, I also don't mean I haven't or wouldn't... let's just say I understand the concept, Marco. Congrats on banging Jackie, by the way..." she forced the words out "... hopefully it went well?"

Marco shook his head. He stared at the floor some more. He seemed very nervous, more so than usual, more than he was even when Jackie was around. "That's it, Star, I did something wrong when we were, well, when we were having sex..."

"Did you do anything to her she told you not to?" Star asked. It seemed unlikely, it was Marco after all. He shook his head and seemed a bit hurt at the implication. "Ok, then it can't be that bad, Marco." She thought for a bit. "If it's a performance issue, just take it slow and give it time, that was a pretty hectic day and I am sure Jackie would understand that you were nervous..." there she went again, the good friend offering her bestie help in getting back with her girlfriend. Good, she thought, that's how it should be.

"No, Star. It wasn't a performance problem!" Marco replied annoyed. Star flinched a bit at that. "No, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to yell. It is just, it was something very weird, and I can't say it to you, even if I try. It was... well, it felt like my mind was playing tricks on me, and I said something I shouldn't have, and that led to a whole long discussion where I realized something about me. Something that makes me even more confused. Something that I can't say, that I think I knew but I didn't know I knew, that I can't spit out even thought I have been planning to tell you since I got back home this morning..."

Star looked at her friend. For a moment she forgot all about Tom, about her confusing night and about her complicated feelings. She was just worried about Marco. He looked completely distressed. She wanted to figure out what to say that would make him feel better, or get him back with Jackie or somehow fix whatever it was that was hurting him.

"Star. I have been trying to ask you all day... will you go out on a date with me?"

\----

Janna stood in the curb outside her house. She had just finished collecting a few items into her small black purse. She had applied some dark lipstick, as well. Makeup was not her forte, but she figured this much at least she had gotten down by now. She took out the bell and hit it with the ruby hammer. Immediately a fiery abyss opened up from the street in front of her, noxious fumes and searing flames exploded up into the dark sky. She heard the cries of agony of billions of ancient souls and the maddening laughs of their immortal tormentors. "Cool!"

Then she saw a large red demon chained to a wooden pillory, which was in turn attached by ropes to a small black elevator. The doors opened and she climbed inside. "Which floor, mortal?"

"Name is Janna, and, well, wherever your boss is at," she told the creature. She knew well to act unimpressed, but she was just a little impressed. She had friends, peers, acquaintances, occasionally pawns. Tom? Tom had minions. Well, Star probably had minions too, she thought, of both the magical and mewman kind. Janna had never been intimidated by Star, so why should Tom be any different?

"Ah, Janna, so glad you could join me," Tom greeted her as the 'elevator' stopped just a few centimeters above the black stone floor of an enormous underground cavern. He was dressed in a black suit, with a white shirt and tie, and three-eyed sunglasses over his face. He extended a hand to help her out of her ride. "Welcome, to Hell!"

She felt herself blush slightly. This wasn't good. She reminded herself that there was still plenty of work she still had to do on Tom, this was not the time to become complacent. "Woah, Tom, don't you clean up nicely?" she replied. It was a weak neg, and not really her style. But Star had told her Tom had said it to her before, so maybe just the fact Janna knew would be enough to throw him off balance a little bit. Unfortunately, she was running out of smug callbacks to flick at Tom after last night.

"Funny, I was just about to say the same," he retorted, rising at least one eyebrow. His expression was hard to read behind the glasses. Intentionally so, Janna concluded. "Since we are apparently going for a reenactment of sorts, let me offer you this," he said, and reached with his free hand behind him, producing a nasty looking spider larger than his fist. Nice.

"Neat," Janna smiled. Tom explained that it went on her hair and Janna allowed him to place the spider over her head. It probably did look wicked cool, even if the legs tickled a bit. "Is it venomous?"

"Deadly," Tom assured her, "but it won't bite unless I command it to."

Ah, so it was only their first date and he was already putting himself in control of whether she lived or died. Oh, Tom, who knew you were such a hopeless romantic? She thought to herself. Mostly, but only mostly, in jest. "Well, where to now? Pretty sure we are 666 years and a few months too early for the next Blood Moon Ball..."

Tom seemed caught up by surprise by her comment, despite their previous interaction. That was good, keep him guessing how much you know, Janna. The more curious he is, the less likely you die from a spider bite and all that. He seemed to ponder things for a second. "It depends. If you are hungry I can always take you to the Faust. It is the best restaurant in this side of the underworld, and only half of what they serve is poisonous for you or would doom your soul for all eternity. After that, we can go for drinks to the Vermilion Viper club."

"Sounds good, but, Tom, I am fourteen, no fake ID is going to conceal that. Also, I don't really drink..."

"Janna, first, this is Hell, of course they serve alcohol to minors. Second, we can figure it out once we get there. I am sure they have... juice," he muttered disdainfully, "if that is all you truly want. So, shall we go then?" 

\----

"Yes! Yes, of course I will, Marco!" Star shouted, surprising even herself with how emphatic her response had been. It felt, for a moment, as if all her worries were blown away by a soothing breeze. Marco had just asked her out, and she said yes! Wait, wait a minute. This wasn't right. It didn't make sense. Unless, "Marco, wait, are you asking me out just because Jackie and you broke up?" She felt sick once again. She loved Marco. Well, no, not 'loved'. But she had maybe a super big crush on him, she told herself, unconvincingly. If he was only asking her out to get over being dumped by Jackie, if he was about to treat her like, like... 'like I treated Tom' she thought to herself, then she didn't want it, not like that.

"Actually, Star, that's the really weird part," Marco continued. He seemed nervous, like he expected Star to suddenly grow fangs and bite his head off. That, by the way, was not likely to happen, well at least as far as she knew. "Jackie and I didn't break up. We had a fight, maybe our first real fight, but we, sort of, resolved it? She was the one who told me to ask you out."

What?! That didn't make any sense! "Marco, is this an Earth thing? Because if it is you might have to explain it to me. I am lost. You are dating Jackie, and she told you, to ask me out on a date?" Also, did that mean Marco didn't really want to go out with her? It was only because Jackie had asked? She felt tears coming up again.

"Well, I don't fully understand it either, Star. But basically, last night I realized that, well, that I... that I like you, and I like Jackie too. It came up at the worst possible moment, but it had been on my mind since, well, since a dream I had a few weeks ago. Maybe since way earlier than that, but I had not fully understood it before," he seemed afraid. "Jackie said, well, she said that she knew. She told me, that she thought you liked me too, and that she was happy about that, and also not happy about that, but that we would figure stuff out. She told me to ask you out, and that if you said yes, to figure out what our feelings were, you and I, I mean, and then to talk to her tomorrow." Then he paused, and his eyes went wide. He looked mortified, "and, oh, I am sorry. She also told me to tell you all of this before I asked you out. I kinda messed up that part. It is sort of my first time asking anyone out, sorry..."

"Oh," Star blinked a few times. That was, complicated, and weird, and had Jackie just, I don't know, lent her her boyfriend? "Well, Marco," she said very quietly, "she is right on one thing. I... I... I do like you."

"Oh," said Marco. They both stood there, looking at each other, blushing bright red.

"Then, maybe," Star continued, with some difficulty, "maybe she is right about other stuff too. This is all super weird. I think I like you, and I am glad you like me back. I get that you like Jackie as well, and I don't really want you two to not be together, although sometimes I feel like I do. I have no idea how this works, but I want to go out with you tonight, and we can figure the rest tomorrow. My answer is still yes!"

"I am really glad, Star," Marco said, looking at her. He still seemed a bit worried, but he also was smiling. "I do still love Jackie, though, and that means I have no clue what will happen, and that I cannot promise that we won't get hurt, that I won't hurt you. If I do... if I do I am so sorry in advance, and I hope whatever happens won't break us up as friends..."

"Marco, the end of the world couldn't break us up as friends!" She saw him smile, the tension inside of him seeming to ease a bit. She felt herself grow calmer too, as she realized the truth in what she had just said. Even if this did end badly, it wouldn't be like her and Tom, it couldn't be. She and Marco were besties. Whatever was about to happen, they would always have that.

"Then, there is one more thing Jackie told me to say. She told me that after I explained to you what happens tomorrow, I should shut up about her and tell you that tonight is all about the two of us, and ask you if you wanted to go for fancy dinner and then dancing afterwards."

"Marco, Jackie is awesome," she meant it, she really really did. "But she is right, if you tell me one more time tonight something she told you to do or not do... I will punch you. Tell me where you," she punctuated the pronoun, "want to take me out to!"

"How about tacos and then dancing afterwards?"

"Sounds awesome!" she replied beaming him a smile. Then Star realized she was wearing a dress that looked like she was about to attend a funeral in it. "Maybe we both should get ready first, though. Check again in thirty, Marco? Tell your parents we are not having dinner at home!"

\----

"So, how do you like the Hors d'oeuvres?" Tom asked from across the table. Janna had just tried one pentagonal shaped cracker with some raw bits of meat on top of it. Surprisingly, it was delicious. But she wasn't sure she wanted to know what kind of meat it was. At least she had made her dietary restrictions clear to Tom before they got to the restaurant. In addition to nothing that would kill her or damn her soul forever, she had insisted on no human parts, nor any other creature capable of speech or otherwise similarly intelligent. She felt that wording was probably airtight enough that she wouldn't need to break the mood by asking about every dish. Besides, she had some trust that Tom would understand and follow the spirit of her request, at least to a degree.

"Well, I like them so far," Janna said noncommittally. "Cool place, by the way."

The Faust was an extraordinarily luxurious venue. The black marble walls and blood-red vitrails, depicting demons and other unearthly denizens, made it look like some perverse imitation of a medieval church. Apparently it took years to get a reservation, but Tom had simply commanded they be given the best table in the house and two poor undead saps had had to find themselves another place to have their 300th anniversary dinner. Janna could certainly respect the theatricality of such a conspicuous display of power, if nothing else.

"Ah, Master Tom, it's been far too long. What a pleasure to see you back in our humble establishment," a tall pearl-white demon with ebony hair and curled goat horns walked up to their table and received them with a vow, "and, may I add, with such a lovely lady! It is good to see your highness is, oh, how do the kids say these days, 'getting back in the saddle'?"

"Are you mocking me, Adorjan?" Tom's eyes lit up in red for a second. The waiter remained impassive, an arm in front of him holding a napkin, another extending forward the menus and depositing two leathery volumes in front of each of them.

"Wouldn't dream of it, master Tom. After all, I am but a humble servant. One who pays no heed to scurrilous rumors regarding the romantic travails of my betters, no matter how widespread. Rather, shall I offer the two of you anything to drink? Madam? Sire?" Janna stifled a chuckle, and quickly asked Tom about ordering recommendations to, less than artfully but effectively enough, distract him from the bad mood he was beginning to show.

"So, you mentioned helping me make Star jealous," Tom said offhandedly after the waiter had left. Evidently his insinuations had brought the princess back to the forefront of the demon prince's mind. "Pretty sure she doesn't even know we are here, though. Was that just a ruse to get me to invite you down here or do you intend to hold up your end of the bargain?"

"Tom, don't you think that it would be too obvious if we simply walked up to Star the day after, well, you know what, and told her to her face we were dating? She is naive, but not that naive. She would know what's up in an instant." It was a plausible excuse, the truth usually was. "No. Here is how it is going to work, if you must know: we are going to go on a very real date tonight, and we are going to bond, so that I know enough about you and you know enough about me that Star will believe we have been dating. Whether we go on a second date or not, we will also need to wait at least a week before 'casually' running into Star. Then I will hold up my end of the bargain, as you say. I'll simply pretend to be really into you and see how Star responds to that."

"Pretend? You mean you are not really into me," Tom asked slightly surprised, unable to avoid the bait. Janna kept her face unreadable.

"Well... right now, I am mostly just curious," she played it cool. "But my point is, when we finally meet Star, I should be able to act like I am really," she looked directly into the dark glasses, "really," she touched his arm and leaned forward, "into you." For a second, her face lingered right in front of his, and she basically breathed the last part over his closed mouth. A moment later, she was leaning back in her chair again and casually pondering one of the vitrails. "You know, really sell it. For Star, of course." Tom was silent, unreadable behind his dark glasses. Janna still felt she had probably made her point.

"But Tom," she added. "I think it is you who does not want to hold up his end of the bargain. I did not ask for a business meeting at a fancy restaurant, I asked for a date. I assume you don't normally spend your dates talking about your exes, right?"

"Well, it's honestly been a while since I have been on a date with someone new..." Tom began, embarrassed. He was kinda cute when he opened up like that. Janna did not have much time to enjoy it, however, she needed to press him for a bit more, keep him talking, before he realized his mistake and closed up once more.

"How about you tell me about yourself? Or about your life here? It must be so cool to rule over all the Underworld!" Flattery and getting others to talk about themselves were both good ways to put them at ease, and in this case, it helped that Janna was genuinely curious about this whole Prince of Hell deal.

"Well, I don't really rule all of it, not even close. You see, 'the Underworld' is a vast meta-dimension, older than Earth or Mewni, much older than myself. But my family has always had an important place in..."

\----

"Whoa, Marco, I am honored that you are sharing so much of your culture with me, on our date!" Star shouted the last three words. She knew the whole restaurant probably had heard it, and it made her a bit giddy. But mostly, she wanted to say it for herself, just to make sure she believed it.

"Star, was that really necessary? Also, my culture? My dad's family is from Mexico, but I was born in California..." he responded, not really angry at her, more like, well, nervous. Nervous like when he was on a date with Jackie, Star observed with pride. Ok, not really the same way, but close enough.

"Mexico? I meant your Earth-culture, Marco!" she clarified. 'La Fonda de Don Alberto' was probably a more authentic Mexican place than Britta's, their usual taco joint. The food here was spicier and less greasy, and there were more private places to sit together. But to Star, it was mostly just a new place on Earth. Besides, Marco had promised to teach her a new Earth dance afterwards. Something called Salsa.

Marco chuckled, "I guess sometimes I forget you really aren't from around here." He did? Star thought it was still pretty obvious that she wasn't really from this dimension, although she had gotten a bit better at blending in, when she didn't use magic. "Maybe I had gotten so familiar with you, that I forgot there are still so many more things I haven't showed you..." he trailed off, looking directly into her eyes.

"What would you want to show me, then?" Star said blushing. Marco didn't respond. He seemed to be staring at her, seemingly lost in thought, or maybe like he was seeing her for the first time. Star felt her cheekmarks lit up just a little bit. "Marco?"

"Ah, yeah, uhmmm," he snapped out of it and began fidgeting with his fork. "Well, right now I guess I want to show you this Pollo con Mole," he laughed nervously. Star laughed too and focused on her plate. She cut a bit of the chicken and tried it more to defuse the tension than because she was hungry. Although, well, that was true too.

"Whoa! Is this spicy chocolate sauce?! Marco, this is truly a marvel of Earth cuisine!" she declared, jumping from her seat.

"I knew you would like it!" Marco beamed at her. Of course, that was the thing about Marco. He knew her so well. They knew each other's likes and dislikes. They could usually predict what the other would say about almost anything. They shared all their... most of their secrets, Star thought, guiltily. So, what did that mean for their first date? Was there anything left for them to talk about that was different from what they talked about as friends? How was this different from two besties just hanging out?

"Star, is anything the matter? You went all serious for a moment there. Did I say anything wrong? I thought you liked the food. I thought it would make you smile, since you have been sort of... sad these last few days. Not that you should smile if you don't want to," Marco babbled on, "but I like it when you smile, Star. I feel that when you do, it lights the whole room. Yeah, kinda like that."

\----

"... and because I lost the game of dice, I had to revive the soldier's wife. But what the idiot didn't know is that she had been fucking his brother the entire time he had been away from home. So, out of spite, I offhandedly mentioned that little detail and, wouldn't you know it, she was back down here the week after. The brother too." Tom concluded his latest story. He had long ago gotten rid of the sunglasses as he became more and more at ease with the girl. Janna indulged him, it was definitely better stuff than what she usually heard from her classmates, and the food had been delicious. The apple tart at the end was pure paradise, maybe literally.

"You know, Janna, Star never really had the patience to listen to my stories like this. It is always 'let's go to another dimension!' or 'yeah, yeah... boring, let's play at something' with her," Tom added. Janna made a show of raising an eyebrow. "Oh, right, not saying that name tonight. Sorry. How about you, anything I should know about you?"

"Well, nothing as exciting as ruling a hell," she emphasized the 'a', showing she had been listening. "I guess I am sort of into witchcraft stuff, but most things I do don't really work. Me and... a friend, held a seance for a dead clown once. It worked but it got interrupted by an idiot bird-man-midget-thing. I like poetry and metal, which is maybe not the most common combination, but also less rare than you might think. Dunno, I am also sorta good at messing with people."

"Ah, so resurrecting the death and manipulating mortals. I can see why you are drawn to, well, this," Tom indicated their surroundings. "Is that all you are after, though? The magics of the Underworld? There are easier bargains you could have struck for that than this date, mor... Janna."

"I imagine so," she shrugged her shoulders. "This seemed more fun, though. I guess I figure I have my whole life to go after the powers of the occult the usual way, but how many girls can say they have actually dated a prince of darkness? Besides, it is not just the title, I also think you are hot. I guess I thought so since the first time I saw you, when you were floating down the hallway the day you... went to our school." A gleam in Tom's eyes told Janna of her mistake. She had said too much. So stupid! All these manipulations and mind games and she had been the first to admit to something like that. She might as well just had come out and said she had a long-time teenage crush on Tom!

"Well, I suppose it is nice to hear that," Tom said, infuriatingly noncommittal. "I think we should move to the Viper now. Get some drinks, loosen up, maybe tell each other how we really feel," he teased. "Adorjan, you may now bring the check."

Janna felt like she wanted the earth to swallow her. Then again, this was probably the place you ended up when that happened, anyway.

The demon waiter arrived almost instantly. He seemed to notice Janna's predicament and shot her a mysterious look. "Ah, I see, Sire wishes to pay in kind, rather than keep balances in the royal tab? One must wonder whether this is so that his human date might be suitably impressed." A pale white hand produced a small black leather booklet. "Shall I make a gesture of showing her the zeros? There are quite a few of those..."

"That," Tom interrupted the server with a furious look, "will certainly not be necessary." He took the booklet, looked at its contents and discretely slipped a bunch of red banknotes and silver coins into it, making sure Janna could not actually count them.

Adorjan took the booklet from him, with a raised eyebrow. "A less discrete servant than myself might comment on how his highness puts far much effort into a pretend date that is, ostensibly, part of a dastardly scheme. In fact, such servant might observe that master Tom looks far more cheerful today than in the whole of last year." Tom glared daggers at the waiter. Janna gave him a silent look of thanks, and received the faintest of winks in return.

\----

The place Marco had taken Star after dinner was also new to her. It was not really a dance club in the way the Bounce Lounge was, or a fancy dance hall like the Royal Waltz Hall in Mewni, but a strange mixture of the two. Most of the place was covered only by a dimly lit wooden dance floor, with tables set aside only on one end of the room. The music was unusual as well: it sounded older than pop or rock music, but it was also surprisingly fast paced and rhythmic. People were dancing in complicated patterns of rapid twists and close embraces. Their movements did not seem vulgar at all, but they still felt sensual in a way that was hard to describe.

"Whoa, I really have never seen this kind of dance!" Star observed, enthusiastically. It looked, well, it looked kinda intimate. She blushed slightly.

"That's the point, Star. I wanted to show you something new tonight," he looked at her with those big brown eyes and Star felt herself melt. "Now, I am not like, super good at this or anything. Some of the regulars here do this every weekend, for years." Star noticed then an older couple where the man seemed to be holding the woman mostly upside down along the line formed by his outstretched leg. "But I know enough to teach you the basics, if you want."

"Of course I do!" Star nodded vigorously. She was always up for learning new things, and only like a million times more so if it also meant dancing with Marco. "So, how do we begin?"

"Well, first, you hold my hands like this. Now, when I move my feet like this, you move back like so," Marco began. Star was a quick learner, and she enjoyed how confident Marco sounded as he explained the moves or corrected her form. He was also very careful in how he guided her through the dance floor or through the turns. Besides, unlike that time, long ago, with the bicycle thing, there was no danger of him letting go without warning here.

There was no holding her upside down, or even lifting her from the dance floor. There were, however, plenty of touches on her shoulders, or her arms, or the small of her back as Marco guided her from one move to the next. It felt, to Star, like loving, almost sexual, caresses. She wondered silently if Marco intended them that way. She gasped as he pushed forward and held her, one feet up, laying on air, horizontal to the dance floor. Wow, Marco! I wish we were alone now and then I would show you a move or two, she thought to herself, bitting her lip.

"You know, Star, I don't think I have ever been on a date like this," Marco told her as he lifted her back up. "I mean, a date where I am the one teaching things or planning stuff."

"Well, do you like it?" Star asked nervously. "I could have done the planning if you prefer, there are tons of romantic dimensions I could show you, but you kinda sprung this on me by surprise... do you know there is a spa on the cloud dimension? I mean, not that I dislike you taking me here, or teaching me Salsa or the food, not at all... I kinda like you planning stuff... but if you prefer the other way around..."

"Star, I do like it. Planning stuff, I mean. It is a nice change of pace," Marco smiled at her, sweetly. He was looking at her in a way she didn't think he had before. Well, maybe once, the day she went to the Blood Moon Ball. "Besides, Star, I think you were kinda rambling."

"Yeah..." Star admitted, her mind half lost in Marco's eyes. "Is that bad?"

"No. But, Star," he leaned forward, "that's usually my thing."

She barely realized when he planted his lips on hers, or when she parted her own to give him access. She noticed, as if in a trance, that they were indeed kissing. It was a sweet, caring kiss, but in no way could be mistook as friendly. It was a loving kiss, with the smallest hint of passion building up between their barely open mouths. The older woman in the couple they had seen before winked at Star as they passed them by. The princess felt like she was in a trance again. She saw the scene both from within and from outside of herself, she felt Marco's lips against her own, but also something else, a feeling of surprised bliss that added to her own but was not her own. It didn't matter. It was perfect. Marco Diaz was kissing her and it all was perfect. 

\----

Tom and Janna sat besides each other on a long black marble bar, under a fluorescent purple light. The Red Viper was packed with demons, undead patrons and indeterminate fiendish creatures, but they all gave the underworld prince and his date ample space. The stools at either side of them remained unoccupied, even as furtive glances were often cast their way.

In front of Tom was a half empty glass of some fiery amber liquid. Literally fiery, the surface seemed to constantly be in flames, and the demon drank it that way. Janna herself was slowly sipping from a pink concoction set in a martini glass. It was mostly full still. She was trying to pace herself. Despite all her bad girl creed, she did not really drink. In fact, she made a point of principle not to. But Tom had insisted and, not wanting to disappoint her date, she had let him order something light for her, just this once. A little desecration was perhaps in order, after all, seeing as how she was in hell. The cocktail tasted pretty sweet, fortunately, and didn't seem anywhere near as terrifying as whatever sort of hard liquor her date was having.

"So, Janna, I was thinking," Tom smiled at her mischievously. "How about a game, to pass the time and to get to know each other better. After all, we should, how did you put it? Bond? For the plan, of course."

"Of course," Janna replied, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. "What kind of game?"

"Oh, a very simple one: you ask me a question, any question. I either answer it truthfully or I take a big swig at my drink. Then I get to ask you a question, same terms," Tom explained. "Sounds simple enough?"

"Why would I agree to that, when I can just ask you stuff normally?" Janna stalled. She understood the benefits well enough, actually. But she also suspected she would fare poorly against Tom in any kind of drinking contest. Besides, challenging him on this, at least a bit, seemed like a good move, even if she planned to acquiesce in the end.

"Because, you get to ask stuff you wouldn't normally ask, and since it is a game, and you are just trying to get me to drink, I can't get mad about inappropriate questions," Tom explained. "Also, because it is fun."

"Ok, fine," Janna raised her hands in mock surrender. So, the plan was to make Tom uncomfortable, well, she could do that. "So, was Star your first, and if not, who?"

Tom's three eyes widened as he regarded the smirking girl sitting besides her. "Didn't you say we weren't mentioning that name tonight?"

"I said I didn't want you to spend the date talking about Star, but you can still answer if I am the one asking about it," Janna observed. Then her smile went wide as she realized her play had gone even better than she had expected. "By the way, that was not an answer, and you asked me a question. Which means you drink and I get to ask again."

Tom groaned, but to his credit, he lifted the glass and took a big mouthful of the blazing liquid. "Fine. As you said, your turn again. You cannot repeat the question, by the way."

"No need of that," Janna replied. Honestly, she had not cared for an answer, she was just aiming to shock the demon into drinking for now. Problem was, he was probably ready now for her to try to surprise him, so any other question about Star would probably be met with a more careful response now. She thought back to her books on demons and their curses, surely there were also questions Tom would not answer. "Tom Lucitor, what is your true name?"

The entirety of the bar's eyes seemed to be on Tom now. He just chuckled. "Yeah, right," he commented, with a nod towards their curious audience, and took another swig. "You play dirty, Janna Ordonia."

"Uh, you know my last name?" she muttered. "Rats!" she exclaimed just after, once she realized her folly.

"Yes, I do. Also, I get two questions now," Tom stated matter-of-factly. "First, how did you know Star and I would... ahem... get together after the concert?"

It was a pretty open-ended question. Janna considered giving a cryptic explanation, but that did not seem to be the spirit of this particular game. "Well, I knew you would be there because you are Hell's biggest Love Sentence fan," she proclaimed loudly, taking pleasure in watching Tom squirm as the bar went silent for a second. She knew about the prince's music taste because Marco had written a brief note about it in his computer, one of the few times he had started, and then soon stopped, trying to keep a journal. But Tom had not asked about that and thus he did not get that information. "I also knew Star would not be able to handle being with Jackie and Marco when they were on a date. I mean, those two are PDA central and Star is practically Egyptian, since she lives in denial about how much she likes Marco." Denial, the Nile, it was hilarious, Janna thought to herself. "So, all that I needed to do was ensure that they would all go together, wait for the inevitable to happen and for you to see it... and well, I had to plant the thought on Star about the possibility of sleeping with you..."

"You..." Tom began surprised, almost asking the obvious question. He stopped himself with a smile, "... are quite resourceful. Alright, second question, what does your plan for Star entail now, from this point forward? All of it."

Janna sighed, reached out for her glass and took a generous sip.

\----

It was late that night when Marco and Star finally made it back to the Diaz's home. They had spent the entire evening dancing, talking and, Star recalled with a strangely pleasant sensation in her stomach, kissing copiously. Her legs were tired now, but she was beaming with happiness. More importantly, Marco beamed too.

"You are amazing, Star!" he remarked, making her blush. "I think by the end of it you were a better dancer than me." An obvious lie, but a nice lie nonetheless.

"Really?! Nah! But take me out more and I might be!" Star shouted as they entered the living room. "I am a magical princess, remember? Grace is kinda my thing!" she boasted, as she unceremoniously launched herself at the couch, knocking the remote flying towards the table. It bounced and hit the floor.

"I see that," Marco retorted with a raised eyebrow. She just smiled at him. It was weird being with him like this. One moment she was speechless princess Butterfly on a date with her long time crush, half-incredulous it was even happening. The next she was Star, hanging out with her bestie since forever, not worrying at all what he thought of her, because well, nobody knew her better. She wondered if Marco felt the same way. It was strange, but not altogether unpleasant, not at all.

"Uh," Marco said suddenly, looking at a note that had flown to the floor from said living room table. "'Marco (and Star), We have decided to also go out for dinner tonight. We might be out late. Don't wait up. Love, - Mom and Dad'", he read. "Looks like we have the house to ourselves..."

"In that case, Marco," Star said with a big smile, "let's go up to my room!"

"W...Wha... I mean... you mean?" Marco began. Star stared at him for a second, quickly realizing what the boy must have thought, her cheekmarks glowed slightly.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Star chuckled. "I mean, you have been to my room a thousand times already, Marco! It's just, my legs hurt right now, and my bed is more comfortable than the couch..." Now that she thought about Marco and her bed, she herself wasn't sure she really hadn't meant it that way. Certainly it wasn't a conscious plan on her part, though, but maybe if it happened now it wouldn't be too bad. Then again, would that be rushing things? Certainly it was too soon, right? Right?

"Right. Sure thing, Star. It's just, well, last time I thought nothing of an offer like that, it ended up being... woah, guess that's T.M.I., never mind, I said nothing," he stammered. Star raised an eyebrow. She was about to make a quip about his first time with Jackie, but she neither wanted to bring that up now, nor was sure she could keep it a secret how much she really knew of the matter. "Hey, you know, if your legs are too tired, I could probably carry you up," he added with a smile.

"Really? Such a gentleman, Sir Diaz," Star affected a mocking tone, even though she knew her blush probably betrayed her. "Please proceed."

He lifted her without problems and carried her in his arms up the stairs without much effort. Star was light and Marco had once thrown Man-arm flying through the air, so this was not surprising. What was surprising, to Star at least, was how comfortable she felt letting him move her around like that. She was not exactly down with the damsel act as a rule, but somehow, with Marco, right now, it felt alright. He let her down in her own bed, far more gently than necessary considering how Star normally 'landed' on her bed herself.

"Well, Star, this was an amazing night. I am so glad I asked you out," he said, then he seemed to trail off, pensive. "Hope it was fun for you too. Maybe it is time we both got some rest?"

Star felt cold as he said that, like something was leaving her body, something warm and important and below it there was a bad thing. Right, she hadn't thought about Tom or the last night at all since dinner. But if Marco left now, then she was alone with her thoughts again, and she wasn't yet ready to face them.

There was also the matter of the next morning. Wasn't Marco supposed to talk to Jackie then? Then what? Would Jackie be mad after all? Was Marco supposed to choose then? What if he didn't chose Star? Or if he did, but then regretted it? This whole date had felt like a dream come true, but now that it was ending, Star realized something horrifying: you woke up from dreams. She couldn't do that, not again.

"Marco... don't go," she whispered at him as he began to walk away. He turned back to look at her. She needed to say something, anything that would prolong the dream. "Marco, if you want to, how to put it, heh, say goodnight... we can do that, you know?" Star said, trying her best to give him a confident smile. She wasn't sure that was what she wanted, not so soon after last night, after Tom. But somehow, if it was with Marco, then it would be ok. Better than ok, she realized, giving her 'bestie' an up and down look. It would be literally a dream come true, and if the timing wasn't quite right, then well, that was just a minor detail...

"Star... don't take this the wrong way, but I'd rather not." She felt the rejection hit her like a slap to the face. He seemed to take notice of her reaction because he flinched as well. "Is not that I don't want to, I do. Hell, after all that dancing I definitely want to, a whole lot. But we are talking to Jackie tomorrow, I am not sure how she would take something like that. Even if that wasn't the case, I am not sure I am ready, not yet, not tonight. Star, please don't be mad, but, could we, could we take it slow?"

Star felt confused. On the one hand, she wasn't sure she was ready herself. On the other, 'taking it slow'? What if this was their first and only date? What if things didn't work out well tomorrow? What if...? But Marco had talked about it like it was a done deal that there would be time to take it slow, or at least like he hoped, just as much as she did, that there would.

"Then, Marco, can you stay here anyways? Just, you know, sleep together. I mean literally just sleep," she had turned around as she said it. For some reason she didn't want to face him as she asked, just in case he said no again. She felt him sit on her bed, and then lie down, and then hug her from behind.

"Sure, Star, that sounds lovely."

"Hey, Marco?" she asked after a few minutes of heavenly silence.

"Yeah?"

"You know we are fully clothed, right? We should at least change into our pajamas..."

"Right..."

\---

"You are, like, soo evil," Janna complained loudly, leaning on Tom's shoulder for support as they walked down the long black staircase. She sounded like a fool, and she knew it. Walked like one too, and yet could not avoid it. "I think I am drunk... Why am I drunk? I mean, I answered like a hundred of your stupid questions and you just drank each time, like a freaking chicken! A thirsty chicken! Hah! So why am I drunk and not you?"

"Two reasons," Tom grinned at her as he helped her walk. "First, I hold my alcohol way better than you do. Second, that pink sugary thing I ordered for you? Second strongest hitter in the whole cocktail menu!" He let out a nasty snicker.

"Pure, undiluted, evil!" Janna bemoaned, and chuckled, for no freaking good reason.

"So, Janna, just to be clear about what I learned tonight: You manipulated Star into sleeping with me so that she would then be ready to agree to go out on a date with Marco. Which you didn't think she would do until she..." he began, angrily.

"Yeah, yeah, until she touched rock bottom by sleeping with you, so that her stubborn pride and denial could not possibly get in the way!" she shouted, carelessly. Something in the back of her mind yelling that she shouldn't have said that. But who cared now? It was the truth and she had explained it to Tom already. If he wanted to know that fucking badly, then he better be able to handle the truth. The truth about what he meant to his oh so precious Star.

Tom's eyes glowed red, his pace was quicker now, almost dragging her feet along the stone steps. It actually hurt, but she felt the sensation muffled by something, probably her own state of intoxication. "I see. And you said you also arranged for Marco to ask her out, by making sure Jackie noticed Star liked Marco? Explain again to me how in Azrael ten thousand names that is supposed to work..."

"Well, the real trigger was that she needed to realize Marco liked Star back, even if he, dense motherfucker that he is, did not yet get it himself. You see, Jackie is pretty perceptive, and she has this big thing about... heh... I forget the word right now. But she will actually push Star and Marco together... at least I think she will..." Janna continued. Oh god, oh god, why was she telling Tom that? He was going to murder her for it! Literally. Somehow it did not seem to matter as much anymore, though. She felt this all didn't matter, like it was happening in a dream. A spinning dream.

"So, you never had any intention of helping me get together with Star. Correct?" Tom asked as they reached the bottom of the stairs. "None at all!" Fire danced around the two of them. It was pretty.

"I mean, I never promised that. I promised to try and make her jealous, and I was going to do my best. But she is not whom I want you to end up with, Tom..." she turned around to look at him. Their faces were so close now, she looked intently at his beautiful blue lips. He seemed less angry for a second, and then he shifted to look away nervously.

He continued to help her walk, through a long corridor and a second flight of stairs, leading to a small metal door embedded in a pentagram frame. He was a bit gentler with her now. Not terribly so, but at least he was not dragging her around like she was made of rags. He remained silent the whole time, probably doing a second mental pass over the information she had just carelessly revealed to him, again. At the end of it, he seemed more downcast than mad.

"Anyways, Janna. I guess I can't really blame you for the fallout. Is not like I didn't know I wasn't the one Star wanted..." he spoke with a voice full of defeat and resignation. "And, well, I had fun tonight. I really did. You are certainly a here of a girl. A worthy adversary in some ways, even if you can't handle your liquor. I have to admit that, as much as I hate the outcome, your plan was surprisingly well thought out." He paused and ran a hand over the back of his head. "How about I fetch you a big glass of water, don't actually kill you, and instead send you back home?"

A few minutes later, she was sitting in a red leather chair with horns sticking out of the sides of the headrest, in Tom's bedroom, drinking from a large Greek vase. He was sitting on his surprisingly plain bed, looking down at the floor. In the wall closest to them, an endless waterfall of molten lava flowed from a large horned skull into a pentagram pool. There was also a rotatory wooden rack of some sort there. The opposite wall had a series of shelfs and glass displays, as well as the room's lone bookcase. There were also three different arcade game machines and a ping pong table, for some reason. It was interesting how surreal and at the same time how familiar that room felt to her.

"Why so glum?" she finally spoke. She was not exactly fully herself yet, but felt a lot better than moments ago. They had sat there in silence for a very long while, and it was becoming unbearable. In a way, Tom being irate would have been easier to deal with than him being this desolate. Did he truly love Star so much? "I mean, you won. You got me all figured out and I feel I barely scratched the surface... I guess I don't really measure up to demon standards with the whole intrigue game, after all," she tried.

"That's not exactly true," Tom replied unhappily. "I don't really have you all figured out. All I really got you to tell me was your plan for Star. I actually didn't ask that much about you." Somehow, rather than her making him better, his words had managed to make Janna feel much worse.

"Yeah, well, guess there wasn't that much to know there, especially not much you would care about knowing," Janna sighed, sullenly. "Just an ordinary girl playing games with things she doesn't understand. Guess you get that sort of thing all the time..."

"Heh, I wish," Tom shot back. The briefest of smiles crossed his lips. "I mean, there are plenty of mortals looking for a deal with the devil, for sure. Some of them come to me, and well, I have gotten tons of calls from girls where they offer their body in exchange for the powers of hell and stuff, if you must know. But honestly, this is the first time where being with me seems to be the boon, and not the price..."

"Why would being with you be considered a price to pay?!" Janna asked, genuinely surprised. Sure, Tom had his issues, but then again, they all did. At least he was not boring. Then, in a more sly tone, she added, "also, out of curiosity, how many of those offers did you accept?"

"None! Come on! I won't say I was never tempted, but I can't think of anything more annoying than a demanding occultist who thinks she is doing you a favor by telling you exactly how she expects to be ravished by the evil demon and then asks for a ton of magical crap in return!" Tom made a face of disgust. "Brimstone diggers! They are the worst."

Janna drank some more water. She looked at a glass display on the other side of the room. Inside was a ruby the size of her head, a dragon skull and a black iron urn decorated with snakes, along with a dozen or so smaller items. "Magical crap like that?" she pointed at it.

"I suppose. Is that what you are after too, after all?" Tom glared at her.

"No. I am curious about it, but the thing I really want in this room is not behind glass," she quipped. It felt weird, being so honest about it. Must be the stupid drink still.

"Are you sure? That is the Ruby of Aeons, which can produce inextinguishable flames. That is the skull of Tareth the Vile. That is the Urn of Midra'Apep, which can raise dead kings," Tom described. "Are you saying none of that is what you are after?" He smirked at her.

"Tempting, but no, not at the moment," Janna said, standing up from the chair. She was feeling much better now. Not clear headed enough to avoid bad decisions, but stable enough to see them through. Besides, she was going to need all that liquid courage for what she was about to do. "Right now, the most tempting thing in this room, is right, here," she grabbed at his tie. "So, how about we flip the script, and you let me ravish the evil demon."

Tom raised two eyebrows. "Well, if that's truly all you want..."

"It isn't," Janna admitted, still honest, "but it will do for now."

She sat atop Tom's lap, facing him, straddling his sitting body between her legs. She pulled his body forward using the tie, and kissed him hungrily. She saw a triplet of eyes open wide in surprise, then relax to a half-closed state. She felt the demon prince return the kiss, his tongue was soft and warm. Was it warmer than that of other boys? It had to be, but Janna could not really know. Perhaps her bad girl reputation was greatly exaggerated - she preferred to think she had earned different merit badges there - but Tom was her first.

Would he be able to tell? Well, she was sure Tom would be able to tell she wasn't very good at this, but perhaps she could blame it on the alcohol. She felt him pull out from the kiss and for a second she felt worried. Was she bad enough at kissing he was getting bored? She saw his smile, a single fang escaping the corner of his lips. Then she felt a hand pushing on her left shoulder and another pulling on her right. In her dizziness, she realized what had happened only after she was laying in the bed, Tom atop of her. She bit her lower lip.

"I think it might be better if I do the ravishing, after all," Tom smiled at her. She had no objections to that. His hands left her shoulders to roam across the length of her arms, resting finally on her wrists, immobilizing her against the mattress. "So, I guess I really never did ask about you. Never had a boyfriend yet?"

Janna's face flustered. "Was it that obvious?" she asked, trying to not show her concern.

"And yet, you are the one coming onto me," he continued, ignoring her question. "You get curiouser and curiouser," Tom mused. He lowered his face to Janna's and kissed her again, his tongue dancing on her mouth. A hand left her left wrist and she could feel a single claw tracing a line on her neck, just above her chocker. On instinct, she broke the kiss and sought the finger with her mouth, using her now free hand to guide Tom's. He let her catch it and Janna sucked lightly on his finger, running her tongue around the digit, avoiding getting a cut from the sharp claw. She might be inexperienced, but she was sure she could make the difference with eagerness and imagination. The opportunity was too good to pass up, after all.

Janna did not believe in saving herself for a steady boyfriend, let alone for marriage. If she had done nothing like this before, it was only because she had never found a partner who was both game and hit her very particular type. Tom fit both categories. She was well aware that after spilling all the beans on her plan, this was probably her last date with the demon prince. Her excuse about making Star jealous was not likely to hold up now that he knew her whole plan. It was tonight or never. Seize the godforsaken moment and all that. When in hell, do as the sinners do.

"Heh, is there anything you are trying to tell me, Miss Ordonia?" Tom commented with an infuriating smirk.

"Yes," she said, letting Tom take his finger out of her mouth. "That we are both overdressed for this party." That got her a double eyebrow rise in return. Tom let go of her remaining wrist, lifting that hand to rip the tie off his own neck. He then let jacket fall behind him. 

"Wait, allow me," asked Janna, as he started unbuttoning his shirt. He leaned forward again and she began undoing the buttons, one by one. It was her first time undoing buttons from this angle, but that did not faze Janna in the slightest. She pick-pocketed for fun and undid complex knots with those fingers every other weekend, ridding Tom of his shirt was child's play, even when partially under the influence.

She tried kissing his chest as she uncovered the flesh beneath the shirt. It was warm and soft, despite the firm muscles underneath. Tom was thin, but not entirely scrawny. He breathed heavily, either pleased by her actions or by the thoughts they probably evoked. Taking her cue from the demon's earlier play around her neck and from what Star told her before, she ran her own nails along his abdomen. She pressed hard, noting that she did not seem to be able to hurt the fiend's skin, even if she had wanted to do so. Thus, no need to hold back. He laughed at her, "so, you are into a bit of pain?"

"You are," Janna observed. She looked directly into his eyes, defiantly. She motioned him to lift his weight from her, so she could slide her dress over her head, without leaving her spot in the bed, under Tom. As the fabric covered her face, she felt a sharp nail trace the inside of her leg carefully, probably leaving a faint calculated scratch, stopping right before her underwear.

"Guilty," she heard Tom reply.

She felt his eyes roam over her underwear clad body, a lacy black matching set. She knew there was not much to look at, at least in terms of the bust area, but then again, if Tom's type was Star, she probably need not worry too much. He seemed pleased, at any rate. She felt a fingertip, not a claw, trace the front of her panties, pushing the fabric in slightly, damping it with her building wetness.

"I believe," he said mockingly, "that I was given a preview of something."

Janna blushed. But summoning all her courage, both natural and from the ethylic variety, she lifted her hands to undo the demon's belt and pants buttons. He helped her slide the remaining clothes away and soon she was face to face with his hard purple member. Looking up at Tom, trying her best to put on a hungry lustful look, she proceeded to lick the tip with her outstretched tongue. After a few moments, he began pushing forward, and she took it as her cue to take more and more of the thick shaft into her mouth.

It was a new experience for her, but not all that unintuitive based on porn or literary descriptions. In and out, a roll of the tongue here, a flick there. Whatever she was doing seemed to be working, because Tom was grunting and breathing heavily atop of her. He also was trashing around and thrusting himself towards her face from time to time, which proved challenging at times, but was also exciting in a way. There was something so obviously savage and primal to the demon prince's movements now. Janna had been craving for dangerous and risqué, and getting your face fucked by a demon in hell certainly qualified for both.

Suddenly, a deliciously naughty thought crossed her mind, about something she once read about in a book. She pressed her left hand against the demon's stomach, pushing him out of her mouth. She knew he could overpower her if he wished, but he responded to gesture by backing off willingly.

"Too much?" he asked with a grin.

She rolled her eyes at him. She took her right middle and index into her mouth and practically spit on them, then she got her other hand out of the way and resumed her earlier activities. Tom gladly obliged, pushing himself onto her welcoming lips once more.

She continued to work her tongue around the hell prince's cock, but at the same time, she reached around with her wet fingers, placing a probing index directly between the fiend's butt-cheeks. Tom's eyes opened up again, glowing red. But his mouth made a circle of surprise, rather than a grimace of fear, and Janna took that as her cue to push forward, inserting a finger first and then the other into her date's puckered asshole.

"By Baalzebûb below, you are filthy!" Tom cried, somehow making it sound like a compliment. Feeling encouraged, she continued pumping him from the front as she penetrated him with her fingers from behind. He grunted and thrashed around until she felt him tense inside her mouth and around her fingers. In the last second, however, he pulled out from her, and began spurting wildly all over her chest, face and hair.

"You fucking asshole!" Janna felt the hot liquid smear her bra and muck her hair. She ought to have hated the sensation, she knew Tom hadn't done that to be nice. It was probably his idea of a joke: she was now literally filthy. Joke was on him, though, it gave her a thrill to feel soiled. "You better not expect to get away with not returning the favor."

Tom did not reply for a few seconds, he was panting, recovering from his explosive climax. Then he looked at her and laughed. It was not a mean laugh after all, more of a surprised laugh. He seemed to consider her words for a moment. "You know what? I guess it is only fair..."

Slowly, he slid himself off from over her, ripping down her underwear and lowering his face until she could feel his unnaturally warm breath in her sex. Then a wet hot flexible thing parted the lips of her cunt apart, and she felt it dance among her folds. She felt something rush to her head completely unrelated to the alcohol. As her wetness spread and her breath quickened, she felt his movements become faster and bolder. His tongue at times danced right over her sensitive clit, and at others went so deep in her that she felt something stretch inside her virgin pussy.

As she felt the wave of her pleasure begin to crest, Janna grabbed Tom's horns with both hands and crossed her legs around the back of his head. He continued as if nothing happened, except perhaps for going even faster. With his head between her legs, he missed the malicious smirk that accompanied her climaxing face. As she yelled in indulgent bliss, she blasted his mouth and face with her wet messy ending. "Sorry, guess I forgot to tell you I am a bit of a squirter," she eventually told him, after she recovered herself. 'Payback, bitch,' she thought to herself.

He coughed as he tried to respond. "Ugh. Ahg. Fuck you!"

"Don't mind if you do," she retorted. He jumped at her. Soon his arms were on her wrists again and he had climbed atop of her with the speed of a hungry animal, eyes red in supernatural fury. "Wait, Tom!" she shouted, suddenly terrified. It was easy to be cocky when it was rhetorical fucking, not so much when a demon in a furious trance was about to claim her by force.

"Yes?" he sounded exasperated, but to his credit, he held back.

"First, I am not exactly on the pill or anything. Dunno how it works with you, but, I think I am a bit young to give birth to the antichrist or anything like that..." she began.

He chuckled, despite the situation. "Not an issue. Demons do not produce life by nature. I mean, there are rituals, and there are also some curses I could choose to put on you if we do this... I promise you an explanation at a better time... but trust me, this is not about any of that. No long term harm will come to you from this, I promise." He sounded sincere, albeit impatient, as he rushed through the lengthy explanation. "And, was there a second thing?"

"Yeah, sorry if this is lame, but... please be gentle, just this one time..."

"Sure, ok."

Tom stood there unmoving for a few seconds, it made her slightly nervous. She had not wanted to stop their power games short, but it was her first time, after all, and as much as she put a brave face so far, she was truly quite scared. She wondered if the demon would find her request disappointing. But when he opened his eyes, they were normal again. He seemed calm and even gave her a gentle smile as he aligned himself with her own body and slowly pushed forward. Janna bit her lip. She felt a short sharp pain, and then a somewhat uncomfortable feeling as her walls stretched around the intruding object. As he pulled out, she felt the emptiness hurt almost more. He entered again and it hurt a little bit less. Out again and even less. Soon the pain was gone and there was only the pleasurable sensation of his slow thrusts.

"I think... you can be rough now," she eventually admitted, in an almost pleading tone.

Tom did as she asked, first gradually, methodically increasing the speed and the force behind his movements thrust after thrust. She felt his hands grip her shoulders from behind. Eventually, the calculated increases gave way to bestial fury, to clawing fingers and hungry plunges. She closed her legs around his waist and her arms around his back. She felt his hands roam her back looking for something. Looking for wings. She felt a bit sad about that, in a deep corner of her mind she could mostly push away. It didn't matter right now. She felt her elation build up for a second time and soon nothing mattered but his grunts and her moans and the unholy bliss that raptured them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... you all thought I meant **Starco** when I said this had a smut scene, but it was I, **Jantom**!


	7. It Takes Three to Tango

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we deal with the aftermath of the previous night, an act of kleptomania sets up future pitfalls for our heroes, and unusual arrangements are discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Not the threesome chapter**

## Chapter 07: It Takes Three to Tango

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place the morning after the last one, meaning two days following the SvtFoE episode _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b). The story has now begun to diverge from the SvtFoE season 2 mainline in ways that have yet to be fully explained.

For the first time in months, Tom slept like an angel. Which, sure, theologically speaking, was all kinds of blasphemy. But, that morning at least, the demon didn't care. Last night had been fun, and it had ended with, well, with a bang. Janna might not quite be Star Butterfly, Tom thought, but she certainly was a remarkable girl. She was interesting to talk to, shrewd in a way that kept even him on his toes, surprisingly adventurous in the bedroom given her previous lack of experience and, perhaps most important, she actually desired being with him. Tom hadn't noticed before just how much chasing Star around for over a year had lacerated his ego. The indignity of two nights ago had just been the culmination of his parade of humiliations in trying to get the princess back.

Then again, Janna was not really in the same league as Star. The witch wannabe was certainly enjoyable, but she was a step down from the magical princess, wasn't she? So, was Tom settling? Was he giving up on what he wanted to be comfortable with what he had within reach? That wasn't like him. No, it wasn't like him at all. Tom was used to getting what he wanted, sooner or later. Star could not be the sole exception, he would not allow it for her to be. He was sure eventually he would find a way to convince her to be with him. 

But perhaps there was no harm in taking advantage of the company of the human girl for a while. She had pretty much told him that Star would date Marco now, and Janna was still willing, in theory, to go along with trying to make her friend jealous. Maybe he could still make that plan work in the long run. Let Star be with Marco for now, and he would date Janna instead. Eventually Star would realize what Tom already knew, that the two of them were better for each other than their respective human lovers, Blood Moon or not. Except, this way, he would also get to have his fun too, while he waited for the princess to understand the obvious.

Now that he thought of it, perhaps he and Janna could even go at it a second time before he took her back to the surface. He turned around, naked in his bed, expecting to see the aforementioned source of fun beside him. He was alone. She was gone.

Tom sought her with his mind, but quickly realized she was no longer within his domain. Finding a particular human within the hell under his rule was an easy feat for the demon prince, but those powers did not extend all the way back to Earth. He rubbed two fingers on his temple and counted to ten. Ok, that was certainly not ideal, but he really ought to stop letting every little setback set him off. He would find her again. At Star's school, perhaps? Besides, it wasn't as if it mattered too much if this had been a one night thing. Janna had served her main purpose: she got him to de-stress and to feel a bit better about himself. Having her around to counterweight whatever Marco was to Star was just one of many ideas he could brainstorm now, given the basic insights he had gained the previous night.

Then Tom's eyes noticed something about the glass case on the opposite wall from his bed. Inside of it, there were various items: a huge red ruby, a dragon skull, and assorted other smaller objects. He blinked. There was a large and conspicuously empty space besides the dead creature's head. The Urn of Midra'Apep, an eldritch artifact older than the Great Pyramids of Giza or the Ancient Obsidian Temple in Mewni, was missing!

Tom's vision turned red as he violently sat up on the bed. An instant after that, the entirety of his room exploded in flames as he cried out in burning rage, "Janna!!"

\----

Unlike most days in the last few weeks, Jackie had slept terribly. She had found it extraordinarily hard to fall asleep last night, only to experience a restless slumber, full of disturbing dreams she couldn't quite remember once awake. In the end, it was barely past sunrise when she decided to get out of bed. Usually she slept in until late on weekends, and today was a Sunday, but she had given up on getting a proper night rest at this point. In any case, she knew that no amount of shut-eye would relieve her unease this morning. Only two things truly had any chance of calming her discomfort.

The first, and most important: talking to Marco, was still hours away. They had settled on brunch at a nearby diner, at 11:30 to give both of them a chance to sleep in and get ready without hurry. It was almost ironic that she wouldn't need the extra time after all. Usually Marco was far more of a morning person than she was. Then again, Jackie thought, odds were he was actually sleeping in today, considering he had gone out last night. Would he be waking up with Star in his arms? The image made her feel... conflicted.

Jackie took a quick shower and dressed up in shorts and her favorite white and green t-shirt, getting only slightly more carefully made up than she did for school. She wanted to look good, of course, but it would be a bit silly to get all dolled up for brunch. Besides, she was not sure whatever she did now would hold up until then. If nothing else, her hair would be messed up. Fortunately, she had years of experience in making messy hair look good. She grabbed her skateboard, and her helmet, and headed out.

Skateboarding was the only other thing that had any chance of calming her nerves. So that was what she planned on doing until she got a chance to talk to Marco. 'And Star,' she mentally added. He had not called her last night, which meant one of two things: either Marco had decided that Jackie was crazy and was no longer interested in talking to her, or, he had followed her instructions and that meant...

"If she says no, or the date ends early, please call me. If not, bring her tomorrow," she had said near the end. Marco had tried to say something in protest, but she had cut him off, she didn't even remember with what. It felt surreal. Like the whole conversation had all been one of her anxious dreams. But no, she reminded herself, it had happened two nights ago, and it had been no dream at all.

Why had she pushed Marco to ask Star out? What could she possibly have to win with that? Jackie frowned and kicked back the pavement, picking up speed. It had hurt so badly when Marco called Star's name. She had been angry and wounded. Marco had been apologetic and guilty.

"Marco, what the hell dude?! I know I asked you about Star before, but yelling her fucking name while you nut in me is not exactly what I was hoping for!"

"Jackie, I am so sorry, I really am, I don't know what came over me... it was weird, it just popped into my mind... I swear... and God, that sounds even worse aloud..."

He had said he hadn't been imagining Star, not on purpose at least. That he had somehow simply seen her face just jump into his mind. Jackie didn't know what to believe, but he had seemed genuinely confused and contrite. She knew, when she looked into his eyes, that he felt terrible about it, perhaps worse than she herself did. She was hurt - that the reflex had been subconscious didn't make it less painful - but she found it hard to stay mad at her boyfriend. It took them several minutes of awkward silences and wounded looks to get to the crux of the issue.

"Alright Marco, say I believe it that thinking of Star just now was a brain-fart. Are you telling me, in all honesty, that you do not like her?"

"Jackie, I like you! I love you!"

"I believe that, Marco. But it is not what I asked..."

"..."

Jackie was going steeply downhill now, approaching the upwards slanted porch of a house. The contrarian sixty-degree angle with the rest of the road made it her favorite natural ramp. Skateboarding was indeed clearing her mind, removing the non-essential from yesterday's conversation: the unbearable pauses, the hemming and hawing, the hesitant guarded phrases, their mutual attempts to dance around the issue.

"Marco, I think you can love more than one person. I mean, at the same time. And... and... I think you might be in love with Star..."

"I... I don't know... I mean... maybe, maybe I do like Star in a way too, but Jackie... I choose to be with you. I mean, if you will still have me after, well, after just now..."

She remembered pausing a long time before replying to that. It wasn't that she didn't know what she wanted to say, and it certainly wasn't to prolong Marco's obvious terror and guilt. She had wanted to hug him, to reassure him that of course she wanted him. But that would only have pushed the true issue further down the road. She had needed all of her courage to force herself to make her next suggestion instead.

"So, Marco... what if you didn't have to choose?"

She felt the wheels lose their final contact with the ground. She dropped her own body low while the board took her meters into the air. She felt the adrenaline pumping and her heartbeat accelerating. She thought of Marco, waking up beside Star, relaxed, happy. Her beloved Marco, basking in the morning afterglow after spending the night with the princess. Jackie felt elated, in her mind, as she flew through the air. For a moment that thought was nothing but beautiful to her. She wanted him to be as happy as he could be, and she knew Star could be part of that happiness.

Then she felt the impact. She shifted her weight to avoid falling off from the board as it touched the pavement once more. Back down to earth, Jackie had an ugly afterthought, "but, what if it is me that is not part of his happiness? What if he decides he doesn't want me after that?"

\----

Jackie finally went into the diner at 11:20, taking the most isolated table she could find, placing her skateboard against the wall and her helmet on the table. She had gone around the block more than once before, decided it was too early for her to come in and done lap after lap on her board. Hours of tracing the streets of Echo Creek had helped her relax significantly, yet nothing could truly remove the knot in her stomach, not until she had talked to her boyfriend. She ordered a vanilla milk shake and spent the time fiddling with her phone. There was a message from Janna, 'Yo. Come to my place by 5. Got something wicked cool to show you...'

She was about to reply, when she saw them walking down the street. Marco was getting there a few minutes early, and he had truly brought Star. She felt her throat getting dry and quickly drank some more milkshake. They looked so happy, smiling at each other and chatting loudly. Oh god, they were holding hands! What had she just gotten into?

Just before they came in through the door, she noticed Marco saying something to Star, who quickly let go of his hand, blushing slightly. He came in first, his eyes scanning the place until they met Jackie's. "Hi Jackie," he greeted her, almost apologetically. He had the most adorable nervous smile.

"Yo Diaz!" she replied, flashing him her own best smile. She waved her hand at both of them. "Hey Star! How have you been?" she added, in a hopefully casual tone.

"Oh, hey Jackie," Star beamed at her. "You know, doing well!" Jackie raised an eyebrow at Star and the princess laughed nervously. "I mean, eh, how about you?"

"Mhm, same old, same old," she lied. The two other teens sat together on the opposite side of the table, and she tried not to read too much into it. Marco was visibly tense, he almost looked like a rabbit about to bolt from the whole scene. Star was probably doing the same thing she was, trying to appear casual despite feeling everything but calm. The mewman was her usual bubbly self, except her eyes kept darting from Jackie to Marco and all over the place, and she occasionally had a weird twitch in her right eye. The two of them kept the small talk going as they ordered breakfast, while Marco just sat there in tense uncomfortable silence. They eventually got scrambled eggs for her, sunny-side up for Marco and a huge stack of pancakes for their resident magical princess.

"So..." Star began, once they were all eating, seemingly unable to bear it anymore. Jackie swore she saw Marco flinch slightly. She waited a few moments for the other girl to finish the sentence, but it soon became apparent that she was expecting her to lead this conversation. Well, Jackie imagined it was only fair. She looked at Marco, just to be sure. He nodded.

"So," Jackie echoed. "I assume you two went out last night? How was it?" she asked. Maybe she should have asked Marco to talk separately beforehand, rather than put them both in the spot like this, but well, this was going to be awkward either way, for all three of them, and she wanted to see both of their reactions first.

"Jackie..." Marco tried to say something, but seemed to stop midway.

"It was amazing," Star said. She looked at Marco, smiling nervously, "at least for me. Thank you, Jackie!"

"Eh? Me?" Jackie replied. The princess' candor and strangely heartfelt gratitude had taken her by surprise. She was not sure the later was well placed, in the end it was Marco that had taken his roommate on a date, Jackie had at most gotten out of the way for that to happen, no more.

"Well, I mean, he said you told him to ask me out, so, if you hadn't, then he wouldn't have, right? So, well, so thank you!" Star continued, she stared down at her pancakes. "And well, I don't know how this works. I think it is an Earth thing and you two will have to explain it to me, because I don't think we have it in Mewni. I don't know if I get to, you know, borrow Marco again? Some sort of concubine type deal? Or if it was a one time thing? Or if I now need to like joust you for him? Or whatever else. But either way... thank you!"

'A concubine type deal'? The Earth girl was surprised the future Queen of Mewni would even consider that kind of role, even if she probably didn't mean it the way Jackie had interpreted. Also, hopefully Star was not serious on the jousting thing either!

Jackie wasn't sure if she had imagined it, but she swore she saw a thin teardrop fall on the pancakes. Before she herself could say anything, Marco's arm was around the princess' shoulder, as he hugged her close. "Star..." he finally seemed to find his words, "it was amazing for me too. It is amazing." He shot Jackie a sheepish look. "I mean... you both are amazing."

The human girl smiled back at her boyfriend, assuming he still chose to be so, then took a deep breath. Clearly her own hang ups around talking about this plainly were making it more confusing than it needed to be, for everyone involved. Well, time to come clean. "Star, this is not an Earth thing. I think, I think it is a me thing, or, maybe, hopefully, an us thing. All three of us," she explained the best she could.

"As for how it works, well, I think we all decide that. I mean, Marco and you could decide you want to only date each other, exclusively, and well, I am prepared to cope with that, if that's the case," she looked sadly at her adorable and kind boyfriend. She was truly prepared to let go, if that made him happy, but she definitely didn't want to. She knew it would break her heart in two. "Or, you could decide this is too weird for you, and we could go back to where we were before the weekend, with Marco and I dating, and you could find something less... complicated. But, what I think I would want, personally, is to still be Marco's girlfriend and then, well, if you two want, you can keep dating too, and whenever you two decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend as well, then I guess Marco will have two girlfriends and we will have a time-share of sorts..." Jackie laughed. Her bottled up nervousness seemed to all go into that laughter, because it began as a nervous giggle, turned into a happy chuckle and ended with her in a relaxed smile. Whatever they replied now, whatever they thought of it, she had finally gotten it out her chest: her weirdness, and her wild suggestion. "Hopefully you both don't think I am nuts?"

"Jackie, I think you are crazy..." Star replied, looking down. Then she lifted her head to look at Jackie and the Earth girl could have sworn she had never seen someone smile so brightly. Wait, was Star actually, literally, glowing? "... crazy awesome! I mean, there are a lot of weird things about Earth, you know? Parking meters, electric lights, football, chicken with spicy chocolate, that cereal with the marshmallows!" she actually counted with her fingers as she spoke. "They are all weird, but they are also awesome. And, ok, you say this is not an usual Earth thing, and I hear that, but it is still weird-awesome, and I love weird-awesome. It might be the most weird-awesome thing I have ever heard. So, what I am saying is, I am in. I am in all the way... co-girlfriend?"

Star sincere and untroubled reaction made Jackie smile in return. She knew that if someone would ever be ok with her own weirdness, it had to be Star, so she was lucky it was her whom Marco fancied. Well, that settled it! Or, actually, that almost settled it, there was one more person involved in this whole arrangement, after all. "Marco, penny for your thoughts?"

"Uh... Jackie, are you asking what I think about a plan that involves me dating the two most incredible girls I know, simultaneously?" Marco asked with a grin. "I think I must be dreaming. I think there is no way I could ever be this absurdly undeservedly lucky. I think every guy at school is going to hate my guts. I think I am for sure going to mess this up somehow, but even knowing that I can't say anything but yes!" She hadn't seen him that excited since the Love Sentence concert, and maybe not even then. "One thing, though, if either of you ever have some other guy you like, then, well, we should talk about it, and have the same... deal... apply. I would feel like such a jerk otherwise..."

"Hehe, sure, sounds fair, dude. But I don't have anyone else in mind right now," she replied.

"Yeah..." Star seemed weirdly uncomfortable for a second, a hand rubbing the right side of her neck. "No one else for me now, either."

"Well, so now that that is settled," Jackie began, directing a devilish grin towards Star. "How would you describe Marco in bed? Wouldn't mind hearing a second opinion!" She honestly wouldn't, and she figured out if Star was truly so thankful, then she had earned the right of making the princess squirm a little bit.

"Jackie!" Marco protested, turning beet red. Speaking of people she loved making squirm.

"Eh... I'll have to get back to you on that one," Star finally spoke, after a few moments of shocked silence. Jackie looked back confused. She had expected Star to maybe not answer her question, of course. But it didn't sound like she was avoiding giving an answer, it sounded more like she was saying she didn't have one.

"We haven't... I mean, we didn't... you know..." Marco started. It was the cutest thing how he couldn't even fucking say it. "We got dinner together, and we danced, and well... we kissed, more than once," he almost whispered that last part. "I guess we also sort of cuddled a bit. But, I guess I wasn't sure, what exactly was or wasn't fair game there. You said to ask her out on a date, and is not like we did anything beyond kiss on our first date..."

Honestly, they could have had, Jackie thought to herself, if Marco had pushed for it. Well, and if they hadn't had to save Star from a bird-man midget in a clown suit, a spider the size of a large dog and a literal army of rats. "Fair enough, dude," she replied. It was actually a bit of a relief in a way. Not so much because she would have been mad if Marco had slept with Star, but because it was good to know that even out on a date with another girl, he was still thinking about her feelings. It made this all so much easier. "It is actually very sweet of you. But, well, from now on, you two officially have my blessing, alright?"

Had Star just silently mouthed 'thank you' at her? Jackie laughed. Star quickly followed suit, and then, nervously, Marco joined them.

"So, Jackie, Star, clarification: how much should I say of this at school?" Marco asked. "Not that I want to brag or anything... I mean, unless I do get to brag?"

Jackie rolled her eyes, sweet guy or not, still a guy. She thought it out for a moment. "Well, I mean, is not going to be a big secret or anything. I don't think that would be fair to Star. But I rather you not brag too much, school rumors are going to be a pain to deal with either way, no need to make it worse..."

They discussed the details for the next few minutes. They would keep it reasonably discreet, not involving anyone else without talking it first with the other two, etc. It was surprising how natural the conversation seemed to flow from there between the three of them, even Marco. Soon they all seemed to decide that it was enough of that and just naturally switched to other topics. Marco and Star ended up telling Jackie about the Bounce Lounge and something called a Goblindog. They talked until long after they had finished their food and paid. Star seemed to be trying to reciprocate Jackie's opening of her relationship with Marco to her, by sort of inviting her into their friendship. It was a bit like what she had been doing the day of the concert. Except this time, it seemed to Jackie like the air between them was finally clear, no big weight on her chest bothering her anymore.

"So, I kinda told Janna I'd hang out with her later today," Jackie said eventually, cutting short a discussion about the virtues and vices of the Mewni Game of Flags, "and I think I am going to have to get a nap before that if I am going to be awake enough to handle whatever she is up to. So, how about I head home now and give you the rest of the afternoon on your own? I am sure there are plenty of things the two of you want to... talk out today, before getting back to school for the week." She flashed them both a conspiratorial smile as she got up of her seat and fastened her helmet.

"Wait, Jackie, one thing first," Marco also got up. He ran his hand through the back of his hair as he got closer to her. They stared into each other's eyes for a moment. "Are you absolutely sure you are ok with all of this?"

"More than ok, Marco..." Jackie replied. "We can talk more about it later, but dude, believe me, this conversation went so much better than I expected."

"Jackie, you are awesome," Marco stated, matter-of-factly. He leaned forwards and they kissed. It was a short kiss, but Jackie felt herself blush. It gave her... reassurance. She glanced at Star, the princess gave her a brief nervous smile and a nod.

"You are pretty awesome yourself, Diaz, and I know people here who can back me up on that," she joked, winking at Star. They said their goodbyes again, and she walked out of the door, jumped on her skateboard and felt like she was flying without even leaving the ground.

\----

"So, do I get one of those too?" Star asked eventually.

Marco sat down beside her, wrapped his arm around her, and kissed her for a long while. Out of the corner of her eye, Star noticed that one of the cashiers was giving the boy a thumbs up.

\----

"So, how does it feel to go from Safe Kid to playboy extraordinaire?" Star teased the boy beside her. They were both back home, sitting on her bed, in her room. Her heart beat fast. Then again, Star's heart always beat fast, and this was some fine excited beating, albeit of a different sort than usual.

"Honestly, Star, is like I said this morning, I still don't believe it. Can't wrap my head around you two being ok with this," Marco replied, seriously. "Are you sure this works for you, Star? I can't even believe it works for Jackie and well, it was her idea, not yours..."

"Marco, would you have asked me out yesterday if this didn't work for Jackie?" she awaited his response, knowing she would not get it. Eventually, she smiled and continued, "I see. Then it has to work for me too, doesn't it? Besides, Jackie really is pretty awesome, and you like her, Marco, you've had a crush on her since forever. Pretty sure I don't want to be the person that gets in between that, I never wanted to be. This way I don't have to, and I still get you for myself too!"

"Well, to be perfectly honest, she is not the only person I have had a crush on for a while," Marco said as she got closer. "Even if I was too much of an idiot to realize it."

They leaned in at the same time, lips pressing against each other. She felt herself melt on contact, her arms falling on the boy's shoulders. She had been worried that the previous night would be their one and only time to kiss. She opened her mouth and felt Marco's tongue begin to search for her own. She pushed more deeply into the kiss, pressing her body against his chest. Despite her insistence, she was still a bit unsure about what their arrangement with Jackie truly meant, but she knew it meant she got to be with Marco, and right now that was all that mattered. She roamed a hand through his hair and felt his mouth respond with increased passion.

Something inside Star caught fire on that kiss. She pulled back from the hug, while maintaining the kiss, and quickly thrust her hands under the front of Marco's shirt, caressing his flat stomach and the compact but toned muscles of his chest. With a force that would have surprised anyone else but her bestie, the princess pushed him down on the bed, laying atop of him as they continued to make out. Finally, she couldn't resist anymore and broke the kiss, "Marco, is this, you know, still too soon for you?". It felt just right for her.

Marco struggled to catch his breath. "Well, Jackie said we have her blessing, Star. I... I think I am ready when you are... if you are sure you want to..."

"Marco! I am sure," she responded annoyed. How many times was he going to make her say it? It was worse than Tom! At least the demon didn't treat Star like he was shocked she might be interested in sex! Ok, that was bullshit. This was a million times better than Tom. The fact that she could even look back at two nights ago and laugh rather than crumble in guilt and disgust surprised Star, but then again, it was hard to feel bad with Marco under her like that. "Don't be the Safe Kid, Marco! Be my Wild Man..."

He blinked twice, then smiled at her. "Alright, Star," he replied. He caught her by the shoulders and, before she knew it, he had rolled her around on the bed, placing himself on top. She felt his hands roam her legs through the fabric of her purple striped tights and then the pressing of his lips against her neck. It was not dancer-Marco, she noted, it was still her bestie being his usual methodical self, but he also felt leagues more confident and more skilled than the night of his first time with Jackie. Apparently he had learned a thing or two in the intervening weeks with his girlfriend, and Star found herself surprised that the thought did not bother her much. It helped that she was being the main beneficiary now, as the kisses in her neck trailed lower and lower until they reached the collar of her green dress. She gasped, delighted. Marco frowned.

"Star, actually... I just realized, my parents are downstairs," he seemed conflicted. "Maybe we can still do a bit more, but we have to keep it quiet."

"Oh," Star blushed, suddenly uncomfortable. She had forgotten about Mr. and Mrs. Diaz. They had been out of the house so often these last few days, and they were so often ok with the weird magic stuff the two teens got to on a daily basis, that Star had pretty much forgotten about the risk of being overheard. But, she realized, no matter how cool Marco's parents were, it was very unlikely that they would be alright with the two of them having loud sex with them on the house. She felt herself frown.

"Marco, I don't want to be quiet..." she thought about it for a moment, "...get the scissors. I know a place where we won't have to worry about being loud at all!"

It was Marco's turn to blush, and nod at her. "Sure, Star. I'll get them from my room. But... man, I kinda wanted to..." he trailed off, nervously. "Well, I wanted it to be in your room."

"You did?" Star felt surprised and somehow flattered at once.

"Well, Star, this is going to sound kind of silly but," Marco trailed off, as he moved away from her so that he was sitting in the bed besides the resting princess. "This place is intimate and familiar, and absolutely you. It brings up so many memories, and, in the last few days, whenever I thought of you... you know, that way... I pictured it all here." He looked around. "Besides, and this may be a wrong thing to wish for but, I guess I also kinda want you to associate this place with a memory of me as well..."

Star laughed at him. "Marco, memories of you are what I associate this place with already! It is my room in your home, and you have been here more than anyone else by far..." Well, maybe not if you counted Glossaryck, but Star felt that wasn't the same at all. "But, I get what you mean, I would also want it to be here... wait!"

The Mewni girl jumped out from the bed and grabbed her wand. She was Star Butterfly after all, wasn't she? If this room was what they wanted, and her bed was where Marco wanted her and she wanted him, then this room is what they would have!

"Defensive Gate Summoning Spell!" she shouted, pointing her wand to the door. A portcullis and a giant padlock appeared in front of the door. Marco jumped, surprised.

"Star?" he said, looking at her quizzically.

"Shh, let me concentrate," she admonished him. This next part was tricky. It was not something she had practiced before, and it had better work the first time, they had already interrupted things for too long if you asked the mewman princess. "Sound-Proof Parent-Repelling Anti-Clam-Jamming Glitter Bubble!!"

A wave of pink light shot out of her wand in every direction around them, stopping right before it expanded beyond the walls of the room. It lingered there, a thin layer of bright pink magical energy with shimmering specks of gleaming dust interspaced through its soap-bubble-like interface. She waited a few moments, making sure the spell held and then flashed Marco a victorious grin.

"No way that is a real spell," Marco commented.

"It is now," Star retorted, sitting back on the bed and leaving her wand back on the bedside table. "Now, where were we?"

She barely had time to say that when she felt Marco kissing her lips again, his hunger for her quickly getting her back into the mood as well. She closed her eyes and focused on the sensations of the kiss. Moments after, she felt his hands roaming under her skirt, pushing the entire dress up. She lifted her arms to help the boy relieve her of her clothing. Marco broke off the kiss to push the dress entirely off of her, and she reluctantly let go of the contact.

He stood up from the bed, calmly taking her dress and laying it on a nearby chair, then headed back towards her and begun removing her boots. Star felt self-conscious, exposed in her underwear in front of her bestie. He smiled at her and looked her up and down, causing her cheekmarks to glow. "Marco... what are you doing?"

"Making memories," he replied simply. He sat down again beside her and kissed her closest cheek. It was but a chaste peck, but he quickly begun trailing down from there, through her neck, to her shoulder, down the strap of her bra... Star shuffled around and sat on her knees, so that she was facing Marco, with both of them atop the bed. She pulled her chin up and kissed him on the lips again, then began pushing his characteristic red hoodie off of him, and then his shirt up. They broke the kiss and she lifted the gray t-shirt over his head, throwing it towards the far side of the mattress. 

She let her gaze linger over every inch of that chocolate-milk colored torso. Then pushed Marco back once more, getting on top and roaming her hands and mouth all over the boy's exposed skin. He smelled good, and tasted even better. She heard him breathing heavily and felt something poking at her through his pants and her underwear. She pressed and wiggled on it, feeling the wetness build up in her crotch.

Marco's hands reached behind her, and with a swift movement opened the clasp of her bra. She chuckled, knowing full well why Marco would never have any problem removing that from her. "Practiced that one a lot?" she asked, innocently.

"Uh... ah..." there it was, nervous Marco, Star smiled inwardly but kept her expression neutral.

"With Jackie, I mean," she lied. She was being mean teasing him like this but, unfortunately for Marco, it was way too much fun.

"Ah... yes, I guess," Marco replied, visibly relieved.

"Well, Marco," she raised herself up until she was sitting on his lap. "I know I don't have as much as Jackie does, ok? so... hopefully this is not too... underwhelming," she said nervously, as she removed the straps from her shoulders and let the bra fall on the bed. 

The bra in question was an A cup, and even then, when she and Janna had gone shopping for it, the dark haired girl had called it 'aspirational' in her case. She truly hoped it wouldn't be a disappointment for the boy, considering how much more developed his actual girlfriend was.

He stared at her, silently. Star felt the heat on her face as she turned red with embarrassment, "Come on, Marco, say something!"

"You look... amazing," he pulled himself up and kissed her left puffy nipple briefly, then opened his mouth to easily take the whole mound of flesh into it. Star felt him suck, and kiss, and flick his tongue at her chest. She felt the heat build between her legs and let out a long moan, thankful for the shiny bubble around them. Marco had begun alternating between sides as he hungrily devoured her chest. If Star had any remaining doubts her bestie liked that part of her, they were quickly put to rest.

His hands gripped her back hard. It was nothing like Tom's clawed fingers, though, and even if Star could feel his roughness, it was not as if he could hurt her. For a magical princess, she was built of pretty strong stuff. In most places, at least. She winced, however, as Marco accidentally grabbed one of her wings. "Ouch, careful there... those are... sensitive," she protested, briefly, and Marco's hand quickly let go.

"Sorry, Star," he said, lifting his head from her chest long enough to look at her in the eye and make sure she was ok. "Guess Jackie doesn't have those," he commented sheepishly. Star raised an eyebrow as she looked back at him.

Despite the brief mistake, the boy continued his ministrations towards her front, pleasuring her nubs with his eager tongue, while keeping his hands on her remaining breast and on the side of her body. Then, very carefully, a finger began probing the outline of her left wing. After a few seconds, another started tracing the right one. She felt her breath quicken and a whimper escape her lips. Marco seemed to be taking cues from her sounds and she made a point of being very vocal with her wordless moans. The boy rapidly mastered stimulating her upper back just as much as her upper front and the combined sensations were driving Star crazy.

"Maaaarco," she moaned. He took that as his cue to try even harder. Time seemed to stretch forever as he kept softly playing with her wings and licking her breasts. He was very much unlike Tom, who had passed through those areas mostly as stops on his way to the next stage, or as a means to warm Star up. Marco seemed to enjoy taking his time there, slowly kindling her sensations for what felt like hours; if not on the clock, then at least inside her head. She whimpered and moaned and grunted, and at some point she felt a powerful but brief shudder. Even after it passed through her, she wasn't sure that was what she thought it was. It had not been a particularly strong one, but... had she just came from only having her wings and nipples pleasured? 

Either way, what she knew for a fact was that this was driving her horny out of her own mind! "Marco! Stop," she said hoarsely, surprising the boy who seemed for a moment to be trying to figure out what he had done wrong. "My turn!"

She pushed herself down and almost ripped the pants from him, barely taking the time to unbutton them, pulling the boxers at the same time and pushing it all carelessly on the floor. She pulled her own soggy underwear down and discarded it with equal inattention. Star looked at her bestie's hard long thick member and licked her lips. She felt like she was in the throes of Mewberty all over again. She needed the boy, particular singular boy.

"Star? Are you all... oooohhh!" Marco shouted as the princess practically slammed her mouth on his cock and began to slurp messily on it. In a way it was weird, that she had been so methodical and careful when imagining this while blowing Tom, but now that it was the actual boy she liked all the technique gave way to an unquenchable savage thirst. She was thirsty for Marco, for what she wanted to suck out of him now. She wanted him to explode in her mouth, and only part of it was wanting the boy to feel good. Marco didn't seem to mind in the least, however, and quickly peaked from her wild attention. "Star, I am about to..." he grunted.

She barely heard him, and did not stop until a few moments after she felt the first shot hit the back of her throat. She drank it like it was the sweetest milkshake she could imagine. In reality she knew it tasted nothing like that. But, she told herself, she needed this, she wanted this, to wash away the taste of Tom.

"Marco! I need you, please," Star begged, opening her legs to him, still in a dazzled heat. A part of her was burning with embarrassment at the side of her she was now showing her best friend. But it was too much: the months of pent up desire, the feeling that this somehow absolved her from the Tom thing, Marco's earlier prolonged slow-boiling teasing!

"Star... I kinda cannot do that right now," Marco replied, with visible regret. "I sort of need a few minutes after... well, after what just happened. But... I can do this," he added, rolling around on the bed until he was laying face down, with his head almost between Star's legs. She felt his smooth flat tongue describe a broad trail up her cunt, parting her lips as it went. She pushed her feet forward and arched back, until she was laying down comfortably. Marco then began to eat her out in earnest.

Once again he was careful and methodical, but she could also feel his desire in every flick and movement. He began slow, but soon seemed to realize that was not necessary at all, as Star was already drenched and ready from their earlier acts. She felt him lap her up rapidly, his tongue moving all around her folds. Every so often, his mouth sucked on her clit and she gasped loudly and lustfully. It took no time at all for her to reach her peak, and this time there was no doubt about it. She exploded with a loud shameless howling moan. 

"Fuck, Marco! That was incredible," Star finally said.

"I just hope that bubble thing is really sound proof," Marco joked. "Otherwise we are in trouble."

Star blushed. Her climax had brought her back somewhat from her altered state, and now she felt unsure about it. Shit, that had been a bit too weird and bit too wild.

"Marco, I..." she tried to put her thoughts in order, "hopefully what you just saw doesn't change, you know, your opinion of me or anything?" After all, a night ago he had thought her too innocent to even know what sex was!

Marco blinked, confused. "Star? What are you talking about? You were amazing... I..."

"You were too, Marco, super amazing!" she smiled at him a huge grin. "But, well, I guess even I am going to have to look at my bestie a little bit differently, now that I know he can do... that, to me..."

"I see what you mean," Marco seemed to ponder. "I guess I also just got a lot more memories than I expected. But, is that bad? Or is it good?"

"Honestly, I guess it is..." Star begun.

"...Amazing!" they both said at the same time. They laughed. 

"Hugs!" shouted Star, and they shared a brief friendly hug. Star found it strangely reassuring. They were still best besties. It was just that they were also something else now as well.

"You know, Star? This is seriously the weirdest relationship," Marco commented.

"It is about to get even weirder," Star observed.

"Oh really?" Marco asked. "How?"

"Well, for one, I kinda still need you to fuck me," Star announced nonchalantly. It was hard feeling embarrassed about that, considering how she had just acted before. However, Marco reacted to it by becoming quite flustered still, which only amused Star further.

"Oh," Marco managed to mutter, turning red. "Sure, of course, if you are still up for it..." He walked up from the bed and retrieved his pants from the floor, producing a wrapper from the left pocket.

"Well, someone was prepared," Star joked. "Nice one, Safe Kid!" She winked at him.

"I mean, someone had to be," Marco retorted. "Unless you have a spell for that?"

"Well, Marco, those sort of spells are a bit like... well, like healing spells, I guess," she confessed honestly. "Not my forte. Also... super uncomfortable to read through with Glossaryck looking over your shoulder, let me tell you..." she grimaced. Although, truth be told, she missed the annoying little magic man. She frowned, casting aside the thought for a less inappropriate time.

"So, Star, before we get to it, I kinda want to ask... is this going to be a first for you?" Marco interrupted her thoughts as he sat back in the bed. "Is not that I want to pry, or anything, but well, just want to know if I should be extra careful..."

"Not my first," Star confessed, her frown deepening as she thought of two days before: the hard cement, the wood splinters. Tom had not been careful in the least. He had not even asked, or cared. Sure, Star Butterfly was much tougher than almost anyone knew. She took punches and bites and fire breath from monsters about as often as most people took baths and, as it turned out, her first time hadn't been particularly painful to her. At least, not physically. But still, she appreciated Marco asking.

"Tom?" he ventured. So much for not prying, Marco, Star thought, feeling a bit annoyed.

"Yeah..." she answered in a grim monotone.

"Well, I supposed you two dated for a long while. So it is not too surprising," Marco commented, and she did not try to correct him. "Anyways, I am glad this won't hurt for you, then." He smiled at her. Star felt relieved he did not judge her about Tom, even knowing he might still react differently if he knew the entire story.

She guided him atop her in the bed and they began kissing passionately. She felt his hands on her breasts and quickly lowered one of her own to begin pumping him to full mast. It was surprising how little time it took them to go from two friends joking at each other to two lovers ready for one another. Marco smiled at her as he used one hand to aim himself at her entrance, and slowly thrust into her. Star gasped and tightly gripped the boy's back.

Marco was slowly going in and out of her, and Star felt as if back in the dream, floating on multi-color clouds. Yet somehow, this was even better. She felt her own arousal build up with every deep thrust, and at the same time, she slowly became aware of something else: a growing feeling that matched her own from the distance. She closed her eyes and felt it. It was like there was a big ball of light floating inside infinite darkness and it beat to the rhythm of her heart, expanding more and more as her arousal increased. But there was also another ball of light, seemingly smaller if only because it was further away, but she could see it beat and grow too. "Maaarco..."

He grunted in response. "Already, Star?" he asked.

"No..." she replied, panting slightly. It wasn't that, not yet. "But, Marco, let me try something..."

She held his arms by the wrist and pushed herself up, deliberately tipping both of them around, rolling them so that she was now on top. She had tried to be as gentle as she could, while still not pushing Marco out of her. Then, she began lowering herself up and down on Marco's cock. She closed her eyes, and began timing herself to the rhythms of the more distant light. She heard Marco gasp and his breath quicken. She smiled.

She felt his hands roam her chest, and then move to her back to caress her wings. Star moaned with abandon, but quickly focused back on the lights inside her mind. The princess barely paid attention to the sickly looking green mist that begun to form and flow between the two spheres. It didn't matter, she knew the distant one was Marco. Marco's desire. Marco's arousal. She could guide herself by it, she could feel his pleasure.

Soon she didn't need to close her eyes and see the lights anymore, she felt his sensations as well as her own with every time she impaled herself on him. She went deep when he wanted deep and fast when he wanted fast. She knew he was about to explode moments before he even tried to warn her, "Star..."

"Shh. I know," she looked directly at his eyes. She slowed down, dragging it along, confidently keeping the boy at the very brink, then stopping to let him fall down from it. As soon as she felt his disappointment in her heart, she began moving again, deep and fast, slowing again as he approached climax. She was barely able to keep herself from ending things every time, her own build up quickly reaching the limit, but she made it into a challenge. She knew it would be worth it. Time after time she took them to the edge of the precipice, and back again.

"Oh god, Star, please..." Marco shouted. She grinned at him, and with a wink began going at full speed again. This time she did not stop, she let herself go completely. Her own desire exploded just an instant ahead of Marco's. Her moans mixed with his grunts and soon she felt him twitching and pumping inside of her. Eventually, she fell to his side, exhausted.

They lay there for a while in silence. Star couldn't believe her luck. Somehow, she wasn't sure exactly why, she was able to feel what Marco felt, at least when they were both doing this. Was that what had happened two nights ago, when she had felt - maybe even seen - him and Jackie together when she was with Tom under the bridge? How was that even possible? Either way, it gave her an advantage, the princess thought, and without thinking, she asked a selfish question. "So, Marco, was that better than Jackie?"

She felt horrible the moment the words left her lips. Jackie had been nothing but kind to her that day, and here she was, thinking about using sex and magic weirdness to, what? Out-compete her for Marco's affections? Why did she even need to ask Marco to compare? And, what if he still said he preferred Jackie? She had been his girlfriend for months now, after all.

The boy said nothing. He didn't even seem to acknowledge the question. The sickening part was, that was what she expected Marco to do if she had been right. She shook her head, her own selfishness was now making her feel miserable, when she should be happy, basking in the after-glow of the moment she had dreamed of for so long. So stupid!

Wait! Dreamed of? That was it! 'A dark spell powered by lust' Star recalled Hekapoo's words. She remembered the green thread between her and older Marco that had appeared when Hekapoo had "inspected" her. Green like the mist between the light spheres, green like dark magic, green like the Seeing Eye spell!

This was not good. Well, it had been good so far, for her, but there was something ominous about a dark lingering magical connection. She wasn't one to think too deeply about how her spells worked, but even Star knew enough to realize that somehow casting dark magic you did not fully understand was the sort of thing you ought to worry about, especially a spell that seemed to last weeks at a time. 

A pair of arms closing around her interrupted her reflection, as Marco drew the princess into a tight embrace. "Star, I love you!" he said, and the edifice of her thoughts collapsed like a sandcastle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen, the Starco has landed! Surely this can't but mean happily ever after now.... right? ;)


	8. You Set the Snakes Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which undead kings rise once more, an evil god is set free, and apocalyptic circumstances set the stage for some people to cast a look at their more personal demons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warning:** Those tags on the fic about Underage, "Light" BDSM, and Bad BDSM Etiquette, are not there for decoration. I'd self-flagellate in penitence for writing this sort of smut, but that might end up being counter-productive. If not your cup of tea, skip the final scene ;)

## Chapter 08: You Set the Snakes Loose

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place two nights after the SvtFoE episode _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b). The story has now begun to diverge from the SvtFoE season 2 mainline with stakes both personal and cosmic.

"Space unicooorn... Soaring through the stars... Delivering the rainbooows all around the wooorld!"

Star felt her heavy eyelids stubbornly refuse to open even as the song labored to jolt her awake. She was only vaguely aware of Marco jumping up behind her, rushing to get out of her bed, scrambling around the messy room searching for his phone. She felt really groggy, and a peek out of her window told her it was the middle of the night. "Marco?"

He didn't reply, and the ringtone stopped before he could find the blasted device. Star felt herself begin to fall asleep again, as she heard Marco rummaging through his discarded pants. 

"Star! Wake up!!" he yelled at her, in an unnerved tone. "Get dressed! We need to go, now!"

The princess did not understand what the fuss was about, but if it had her bestie this worried, it must indeed be important. She forced herself awake and reached around for her wand, just in time to see Marco smash head first against the pink shimmering bubble that still surrounded the middle of her bedroom.

"Star!" he complained. "Take it down, quickly! The scissors are in my room!"

She didn't even ask, not before she dismissed both of her spells, dropping down her sound-proof shield as well as the lock on the door. But as Marco darted towards the now unlocked entrance, she begun to feel something was indeed horribly wrong, and she did not want to be left in the dark about it. "Marco! What's happening?"

He tossed her his phone as he ran out of her room. She unlocked it. Two missed calls, four text messages, all from Jackie.

MARCO, STAR, HELP!!  
AT JANNA'S  
ZOMBIES!!?? BIG SNAKE!  
NOT A DUCKING JOKE!!

Shit! Jackie was in danger! Janna too. Never mind half the stuff in those messages did not add up, they would figure it out when they got there. Star summoned herself an outfit, no time to dress the old fashioned way, or otherwise get ready. Just as she did, she saw Marco come back into her room, practically bashing the door in, pulling another red hoodie over himself and holding the dimensional scissors on his right hand.

"Star, sorry for yelling..."

"Marco! No-time-for-unnecessary-apologies. Open that portal!"

\----

The tear in the fabric of space happened to open up to Janna's front yard. The place was unrecognizable. The grass was burned down to a black amorphous waste all around them and a fiery chasm had opened in the ground in front of the door. Beside the crack on the earth lay a broken wooden box. Star recognized it immediately as Tom's underworld elevator. She saw the demon who usually lifted it up, Tom's pet gargoyle, fighting for its life a few meters away. Around the fiend were six or seven rotting corpses, risen from the ground and walking, each body surrounded by a shadowy purple halo. The shambling bodies were covered in ornate jewelry and decayed rags of what millennia ago might have been fine clothing. One of the undead creatures was bitting into the demon's shoulder.

"Ky-yaaa!" Marco shouted, and with a kick sent the offending zombie's head flying into the air, separating it cleanly from its torso.

"Mega Narwhal Blast!" Star followed soon after, throwing four others back, slamming them into the ground so strongly their limbs fell apart from their decaying bodies. Normally she would have made a comment to Marco about the score but, until they found their friends, it was no time for jokes. "You! What is going on, and how is it Tom's fault?" she asked the demon.

A pillar of flame spiraled out of the fissure in the ground and the aforementioned prince of the underworld came flying with it, propelling himself up by shotting flames from both his hands, eyes glowing bright red. He landed in front of his slave and blasted the remaining two corpses attacking it, one with each of his outstretched hands. After he finished, he turned off the flames, his eyes went back to normal at the same time. "Hey! Why would this be my fault?!"

"Zombies, demons, chasms to hell," Marco enumerated with a sarcastic tint to his voice. "It could be anyone, really! Now, where is my girlfriend, Tom?"

"Uh," Tom looked at the boy, then at Star. He huffed annoyed. "Right there, I guess?"

"My other girlfriend, Tom!" Marco shouted. "I mean Jackie!"

Wait, had Marco just called her his girlfriend? Had Tom? Star dismissed the wonderful, scary, and confusing emotions the word was bringing up from inside her. She tried to focus on the situation at hand. 

"Tom, explain now what the literal hell is going on here, or I am going to blast you so hard you'll leave a whole new crater on the way down!" She had no patience for Tom, or for how weirdly guilty seeing him now was making her feel, much less when her friends were in danger!

"Fine.... Starship," he almost spat the pet name. It suddenly sounded to her almost like he meant it as an insult. "Your friend... I mean Janna, not the other one... took something from me, and apparently she made a mess with it. She, or someone else, called the elevator up, but I am afraid whatever they did was already too far along. In fact, if we don't hurry, this royal morons are going to be the least of our problems... Also, 'my other girlfriend', what the hell Marco? You fucking pig!"

"Look who is talking!" yelled Star, before Marco could stammer in embarrassment or take the bait. Despite taking the split-second to shut up Tom, she still took the information in stride. She moved quickly. Before she had even finished speaking, she was blasting down Janna's door and jumping over the precipice. They had to be in there somewhere. The hordes of zombies that came pouring out of the living-room told the princess she was likely right. "Flesh Eating Moths Hurricane!"

Between her wand and Tom's pyromancy, they made quick work clearing the place. Hopefully they weren't too late.

"Jackie!" Marco shouted. A distant muffled cry came from the second floor, and the boy rushed up the stairs, kicking and punching shambling cadavers along the way. Star rushed behind him, blasting the remaining zombies with rainbow punches and terrifyingly fierce woodland creatures. Tom flew up behind her, surprisingly also in a hurry.

"So, what exactly are we looking at?" Star asked.

"Well, if we are early enough, it should be a black funerary urn. Give it to me and I can stop this in just a sec," Tom observed, calmly.

"And if we are not early enough?" Star retorted.

"Then, let me guess: we are going to see a huge phantom snake?" Marco asked, from farther ahead.

"Well, yes, something like that..." Tom confirmed. "How do you know?... wait, nah, don't answer that, I can guess too..."

The two of them joined Marco inside Janna's room. The second thing they noticed was that the roof was missing now. The third thing they noticed was the candles and the blurred circle and pentagram drawn on the floor, broken apart by cracks on the wood beneath them. However, the very first they noticed, was, of course, the snake. The shadowy semi-translucent shape of a gigantic cobra, coiled around the bodies of Jackie and Janna. It was half as thick as they were tall and long enough to probably reach the houses on the other side of the street if fully stretched. Blood red eyes glowed sinisterly against the night sky as it turned to regard the three new arrivals. It opened its mouth to show two huge ivory-white fangs.

"Marco!" Jackie shouted.

"Star!" Janna followed. 

At least they seemed relatively unharmed.

"WHO DARES DISTURB MIDRA'APEP, DEMI-GOD OF TORMENT, SPAWN OF THE INFINITE CHAOS, THE BEAST OF THE MAUSOLEUM OF STONE KNIVES, HE WHO COMMANDS TEN THOUSAND DEAD KINGS?!" The snake spoke in an ominous tone. "KNOW THAT THIS WORLD IS NOW MINE, I CLAIM IT AS MY DOMAIN, FROM NOW UNTIL ALL FLAMES IN HEAVEN GO DARK!"

"Oh, great," Tom muttered, more annoyed than afraid. After throwing an exasperated look Janna's way, he began speaking back at the cobra in a commanding tone. "Midra'Apep, I, Tom Lucitor, command you to withdraw. I invoke my right of reign and domain..."

"YOU HAVE NO DOMAIN IN THIS DIMENSION, PRINCE TOM, AND THUS NO RIGHT TO COMMAND ME!" It spoke back. "I HAVE CLAIMED DOMAIN, I COMMAND YOU TO WITHDRAW!"

"I am afraid that doesn't work for me, either," Tom responded, taking a single step forward. "I reject your domain, by the way, it was improperly claimed. Which means," his eyes glowed burning red and his voice became deeper and echoing, "that we are doing this the hard way!"

"Oh, I can't believe I am agreeing with Tom, but," Star's face took a scarily fierce look, "The hard way sounds great right about now! First... let go of my boyfriend's girlfriend! Warnicorn Stampede!!"

A herd of terrifying one-horned horses came charging out of thin air. The shadowy serpent's tail shook violently and swiped horizontally like a titanic whip, meeting the entire stampede head on, throwing warnicorns flying into the air. Tom and Marco took the opportunity to jump ahead, avoiding the viper's tail. When they reached the coil that held the two girls, Tom pressed his claws against the serpent's translucent mass and blasted it with a fiery shock-wave. It twitched involuntarily, long enough for Marco to pull Jackie free and jump away. Without the extra body between the coils, Janna simply fell, right into Tom's arms.

"Woah, my hero," Jackie said in a half-joking tone, sounding surprisingly calm under the circumstances. Star saw her smile broadly at Marco as he carried her away from the monstrosity.

"Hey, Tom, funny story..." Janna spoke to the demon prince as if they knew each other. He groaned in response.

Star realized this was her chance to get a clear shot. The warnicorns had barely done any damage, and she figured a laser cannon might not help too much this time either, but she had recently learned something that seemed to work pretty well against demons. She focused her anger into the wand, letting it produce a blast of emerald and shadow, a wordless spell of dark magic.

The ray came out thin and feeble, it hit Midra'Apep without effect, bouncing off of its shadowy scales. The demi-god seemed slightly more solid, more corporeal, now. It laughed thunderously at Star.

Tom groaned and glared at Marco. "Let me guess, you two just slept together and now she is not angry or frustrated anymore?"

Jackie and Janna looked at both her and the human boy. Jackie seemed a bit embarrassed but smiled faintly. Janna had an almost deranged expression of glee, and gave them thumbs up when Tom was looking elsewhere.

"Fortunately," Tom continued. "I am having absolutely no problem being angry right now!"

He was glaring at Janna, still in his arms, as he spoke. She barely had time to get back on her feet as he let go of her and began muttering something in a strange guttural language. Chains of flame and lightning sprung up from his claws, wrapping the giant snake's body. He began to float up, into the night, dragging the monstrous demi-god with him, breaking down one of the room's walls as he pulled it out into the yard, and then down towards the chasm in the ground. In the last minute, however, Midra'Apep began floating up, of its own power, opposing Tom's pull.

The two seemed evenly matched in their tug of war. Star tried to help her ex-boyfriend, ineffectively. Her narwhal blasts seemed to bounce against the snake abomination, and her dark magic blasts kept coming out too puny to make the slightest difference.

"Marco..." Tom spoke, voice strained by the effort of holding down the chains on the monster "... kiss Jackie! Don't ask why, just do it!" 

"Eh..." Marco answered surprised. 

Jackie, however, still in his arms, quickly took his cheek in her hand and pulled him down for a kiss. Star looked at that and felt a pang in her stomach. Ok, she got what Tom was trying to do, but seriously, couldn't he have found a more discreet way? Given their conversation earlier in the day, Star didn't really want Jackie figuring out that it still bothered her when the human girl and Marco kissed. It really wasn't fair that it did, especially given that Jackie was willing to go out of her way to share Marco with her. Summoning all of her annoyance at both Tom and herself, as well as her jealousy, she tried blasting the serpent again. This time she managed a solid bolt of dark magic, but still nothing like what she had done to Tom two nights ago. The shadow snake flinched in pain, but held its ground. Or its air, as the case may be.

"FOOLS! EVERY SECOND I SPEND IN THIS WORLD, I GROW STRONGER!" The demi-god shouted. It proceeded to affirm its boast by flying up a bit higher, dragging Tom up into the air this time around. 

The demon prince looked at Star, and she could see he was unsure about something. He closed his eyes briefly and, when he opened them again, his regretful sad look was replaced by a bright red iris-less glare of fury and determination.

"Dammit, Star!" Tom shouted. "So now it turns out you don't even mind Marco wrapping tongues with his side girl? Or, really, his main girl?! Since you are the side-dish, from what I have heard so far. Which, by the way, seriously, Star? That's kinda pathetic..." He pulled himself back down until his feet made contact with the ground again, muscles tense and arms trembling with the effort, ruby eyes glowing brighter than any other light around them. "Speaking of pathetic, you realize you and all your friends are now going to be in deep shit for basically all eternity, just because Marco gave you a happy, right? Hell, wish you were back to being a mopey snappy bitch and seeking your comfort in the streets like a common fucking wh..."

"Shut up!" Star shouted at him. She felt a cold sensation spread through her body. Her cheekmarks shone emerald, her wand as well. "Tom, I understand what you are trying to do and, to be absolutely fucking fair, it is working. But damn it if you are not truly the biggest asshole in all of hell!!"

A thick twisting blast of green and black energy emerged forth from the front of her wand, carrying all of her frustration and hate for Tom. Star called upon her memories of that awful night two days ago and her annoyance at his current comments, as well as the fact that she now would have to explain what the demon had just said to Marco and Jackie (and, well, to Janna too, probably)! The powerful beam hit Midra'Apep straight in its open mouth, blasting the serpentine leviathan down into the depths of hell, where Tom reeled it in. The demon prince made a gesture with his hand, and the crack sealed itself after him. His gargoyle and the lift were already nowhere to be found either.

"Wait, what the down there was he on about?" Marco asked, looking at Star confused. She felt a weight inside her stomach. "And why did he want Jackie and I to kiss? ... Not that I am complaining," he clarified, looking down at the skateboarder girl, who smiled back at him.

"I... he... emh..." Star did so not want to talk about any of that right now, or, well, ever. "Hold that thought, Marco. Janna? Jackie? First, are you two alright? Second, what was going on here before we arrived?!"

"I am fine. As for the second question... Star, it is a bit of a long story... maybe we should get back downstairs first, make sure Jackie is alright too... get you all some tea?" Janna looked around. "Oh, and I really need to figure out how to explain to my parents what happened to the house when they get back... on the one hand, they will never believe the truth... on the other, not sure how they will even explain me doing any of this..."

While Janna was pondering the pro's and con's of supernatural home devastation, Jackie finally spoke. "I am fine too, a bit shaken, perhaps," she admitted, not sounding shaken in the least, for the standards of what she had just experienced. "But I have a question. Well, like a million questions, really. But, one in particular: how come you all seem to be on first name basis with a purple horned demon from hell?"

"Ex-boyfriend," Star explained.

"We went out last night," Janna added, getting an incredulous look from both Jackie and Star.

"Wait, so all of you have dated not only a demon, but that particular demon?" Jackie pressed on.

"Demon prince," Janna corrected her, proudly.

"Not all of us!" Marco protested, just as quickly.

"Well," Jackie pondered it for a second. "That would be kinda hot, actually."

"Yeah..." Star agreed, absentmindedly.

"I said it first," Janna pointed out.

\---- 

"Here," Janna handed Star a cup of tea, before turning toward the other sofa to offer the remaining two to Marco and Jackie, who were sitting together. She ventured a sideways glance at Star. If the princess was bothered by that display, it did not show. "Well, glad at least the kitchen is still mostly there. No gas leaks either, I think." Tom would have probably set those off if that were the case, she reasoned.

"So, ok, Janna, I get the part where you went out with Tom... sort of... and I am going to assume I can't talk you out of that one, but I am going to need you to explain the snake thing!" Star began the interrogation. Janna had sort of expected it to be Marco, but the boy seemed too busy looking at his other girlfriend and trying to reassure her. Jackie did not look like she needed reassurance, but she was also not complaining, the troublemaker girl noted.

"Well, Star, so Tom was telling me yesterday about this magical urn that brought dead kings back to life," she said truthfully. "It sounded pretty interesting, so, after the date, I decided to borrow it..."

"Steal it," Marco corrected, rolling his eyes.

"Whatever you want to call it, Safe Kid," Janna grumbled. "Anyways, it sounded fun. He said nothing about giant snakes or anything like that. So, well, I looked the thing up online and, again nothing about snakes, or any real specifics, but there are some general rituals you can do to unlock an unknown magical object. It kind of needed two people, so I called Jackie over too."

"Pro-tip, dudes: unlocking rituals are long, choral, majorly weird and vaguely homo-erotic," Jackie commented, causing both Janna and Marco to blush. Star threw the skateboarder girl a strange, somewhat worried, look. Jackie shook her head.

"Honestly, I would have tried getting Star for it," Janna spoke. Jackie raised an eyebrow. Star shuffled uneasily. "Not like that! I just mean it would have been safer with her around. But honestly I was expecting it to not work at all, like most of my stuff, or at most to get us a ghost inside the summoning circle. We had Tom's bell on stand-by and everything, just in case. I was not counting on dark, long and megalomaniacal showing up!"

"Janna, honestly, even I know to not go around poking at Tom's random hell crap," Star admonished her. "But whatever, next time let me and Marco know, ok? First, it looks like you two were in over your heads with this. Second, some of it was honestly kind of exciting! At least once we knew you two were safe..." The princess smiled at her and punched up in the air with her wand. 

Janna was glad Star was in a good mood, after all. She had been worried her friend would take a much dimmer view of her activities, specially after they had called her and Marco in the middle of the night, and after all the stuff Tom had ranted about just a few moments ago. But Star's happy go lucky demeanor seemed to be back as the default, after months of relative absence. Janna was about to ask herself what had gotten into the princess, but then quickly glanced at Marco, chuckling at her own involuntary and unspoken joke.

"Actually, Jackie, just, could you never scare me like that again, please?" Marco spoke out of the blue, suddenly sounding very serious. He was staring at Jackie in the eyes and holding her tightly. Star glanced discretely away, but not discretely enough for Janna not to notice.

"Marco," Jackie began, looking back at him, thoughtfully and sadly. "Well, I kinda didn't know what Janna had in mind at first. I suppose I could have refused to go along with it once she mentioned magic rituals, but it didn't seem that bad at the time. I will probably be a bit more careful with this sort of stuff in the future, but well... no. I mean, my answer is that I cannot promise never to scare you again. What can I say, sometimes I want a little danger in my life! Aww, don't make that face, Marco. You do this kind of thing all the time, with Star. Hell, based on what you have told me, you spent sixteen years in another dimension, risking your life every single day, and I never even knew! Could you promise me then that you will never again put yourself at risk?"

They all stood there, speechless. Even Janna or Star had nothing to add. The witch wannabe had been about to reassure Marco that she would not involve his girlfriend on something like this again, but now saying that seemed unfair to Jackie.

Eventually, Marco sighed in defeat. "Ok, Jackie, that's all true. I can't promise that either. How about this: can you promise to at least try to let me know when you are going to do something this dangerous again? That way we can at least be there for each other."

"Sure... if you are willing to promise the same?" Jackie countered, with an excited twinkle in her eye.

Marco looked at Star, as if asking for confirmation.

"Oh... eh... Of course!" the princess eventually beamed back at the both of them, still seeming a bit unsure but trying to appear decided. "I think I kinda already promised Jackie she was invited to go on adventures with us, after all..."

Janna could tell Star's heart was not in those words. The problem was, if she could tell, so could the other two. Marco knew Star better than anyone, and Jackie was actually fairly perceptive as a rule. A long uncomfortable silence descended over the four of them. She was saved from having to do anything about that, however, by a 'whossh' sound erupting outside, followed by the ringing of her doorbell.

Janna stood up and, carefully, peeked through the peephole. On the other side, the purple demon looked impatient, his hair messed up and shirt half shredded, presumably from the fight with the snake demi-god.

"Hey, Tom, glad to see you back," the dark haired girl spoke quickly, in an ambiguously apologetic tone. "Please, come in! Can I offer you some tea?"

"No," he replied simply. "I just wanted to make sure you all," he looked at Janna, then at Star, "were doing ok."

"Pfft," Star huffed. Her good mood suddenly again dissipated. "We are fine, Tom. By the way, thanks for the peptalk earlier, real classy stuff!"

The demon's initially neutral expression turned into an angry glare in response. "Well, thanks for not leaving me to finish the fight on my own... oh, wait, that's exactly what you all did!" Tom retorted, eyes glowing and flames spewing out of him. Jackie looked around nervously, Marco just rolled his eyes and mouthed silently: 'drama queen'.

"Figured you got things under control. I threw him square inside your dominion or whatever the word is," Star served back.

"Domain! And I did have it under control," Tom replied, with contained annoyance.

"Then? What was the problem?!" Star shouted, with open irritation.

"They really did use to date, didn't they?" Jackie joked at Marco, finally getting a bit more at ease with the whole demon prince situation.

"Well, yeah," Star admitted, glancing back at them. Then, nervously, she added, "A long time ago, though!"

"Oh, sure," Tom smirked viciously, stepping towards the princess. He spoke in a mocking, sarcastic tone. "Long long ago. You know... water under the bridge?"

Star tensed in response to those words, her hand gripping her wand hard enough that her knuckles were starting to turn white. Her back was to Marco and Jackie, but Janna could see half of the horrified expression she wore. The troublemaker girl was not sure exactly how the dots connected, but she knew that was her cue to intervene, before Star blasted her ex or he let out any information the other teens would regret hearing.

"Tom," she began, looking at the floor. "I... I am sorry about the urn, I didn't know what would happen." That was true, as far as it went. "Thanks so much for saving me..." Ok, she was maybe overdoing it just a tiny bit.

She moved towards him, placing herself between the demon and Star, touching a hand up to his left cheek and winking at him. "It is just, after last night, I needed a way to make sure I would see you again. I thought taking the urn with me would ensure you showed up. I wasn't planning on using it at first. I am so glad you did come back," she ranted, perhaps a bit melodramatically. That said, that was two truths and one lie, so she was at least statistically honest.

"Oh, really?" he asked. Tom's smile became broader and only slightly less sinister. Clearly he was catching on but, Janna observed, he also seemed genuinely pleased. "Didn't figure I made that much of an impression." He was smirking, at herself and at a probably disconcerted Star behind her. Good. "Next time just ask for a second date. I'd rather you not release imprisoned demi-gods every time... seriously, Janna, most people would have earned an eternity of torment for just the one!"

Janna grinned mischievously at him. "Well, I am already going to be grounded for fifty years at least for what happened to the house. But how about you 'torment' me for the night?" she purred. "After all, I just learned today you are pretty handy with chains!"

Unable to resist it, Janna sneaked a peek back at the other three. Star and Marco were both making a face, though Star's disgust seemed a bit exaggerated, and perhaps mixed with something else, if you asked the dark haired girl. Jackie just played it cool and sipped her tea.

"Oh, is that truly what you want?" Tom teased, with a pleased smile. "Fine. I have my own reasons to not want you grounded, and I am pretty sure my servants and I can get most of this mess sorted out before your parents show up. In exchange, I shall personally punish you for your thievery..." he added gleefully, and a shiver ran between Janna's legs.

Jackie calmly put her cup on the table. "Well, I think that's the cue for the three of us to leave. Marco? Star?"

\----

Well, that had been a truly strange day, thought Star to herself. No, not the fifty feet snake or the undead hordes. That was well within the range of a normal Sunday for her. But, Janna dating Tom? And, had he been, sort of, worse than his usual self? Sure, he had needed her pissed off for the fight, maybe. But he didn't even think of apologizing after, he just kept sniping at her! And had Janna taken his side? Also, what was that about chains? Were Janna and Tom now going to... she didn't want to even think of that, she told herself, unconvincingly.

"Well, Jackie, I guess we should walk you home now," Marco interrupted the princess thoughts. "Actually, I can walk you home. Star, thanks so much, for everything. I understand if you'd rather go back to sleep now, sorry for dragging you into this." He offered her the scissors.

Oh, right, that was the other weird thing that had happened today. She and Marco had become lovers, at the very least. Star blushed.

"Awww, Marco, no need to apologize. I drag you into stuff like this all the time!" she pointed out. Then a thought crossed her mind. There was one other very weird thing about this day that Star felt she needed to address, sooner rather than later. She took a deep breath. "Actually, you should go back to sleep! I will take Jackie back to her place. I can always sleep in class!" She smiled.

"Star, that's not..." Marco began admonishing.

"Yeah, yeah, you know it will happen either way," she stopped him. "Besides, I kinda want to talk to Jackie. You know, girl stuff?"

Jackie raised an eyebrow at her and smirked. Marco shuffled nervously. "Ah, Star... ok, sure. Jackie?"

"Sounds good to me!" the skateboarder girl replied. She leaned towards Marco and kissed him smack in the lips. Well, that made this even harder, but also, even more necessary, if you asked Star. The other blonde just seemed to look at Star expectantly. "Well, aren't you going to kiss him goodnight too?" she asked.

"I... ah... eh..." Star stammered.

Marco was red like a beet, but seeing Star's conflict, he walked towards her. "Star, we can always kiss later, in private, if this is being too much on the spot. For now... hugs?"

"Hugs!" Star laughed and hugged Marco. Then, feeling his now familiar arms around her, she changed her mind. What the hell! She tilted her head upwards and kissed him softly.

"Whoa, go Diaz!" Jackie chuckled. 

Star felt super embarrassed, but she didn't feel Jackie had meant anything bad by her comment. Eventually, Marco separated from her too and, after asking if they were sure and shooting them both an apprehensive look, opened a portal back to his bedroom and disappeared through it.

"So, what's up, Star?" Jackie asked immediately. "Going to trade racy stories about our boy Marco?"

"What? No, Jackie..." Star begun, confused and flustered.

"Please, don't even try to tell me you don't have any this time!" the other girl continued nonchalantly, amused even. "I knew you two were back from doing it the moment he barged in through the door, his hair always gets messy in a weird way after it. Sorry if we interrupted, by the way! But, well, it was kinda life or death..."

"No! Jackie, stop!" Star shouted frustrated. The human blinked at her and looked back, hurt. "I mean, yeah... we kinda... well... we did..." Oh God! Why was she telling Jackie that?! Well, I mean, that was obvious, but still, to come out and say it that way, to her, was weird. "I just, I just wanted to talk about other stuff..."

"Oh," Jackie stopped on her tracks, stood there in silence for a moment and turned back to face Star. "Sorry. What do you want to talk about?"

"I... well... why are you so alright with this? With me and Marco, I mean," Star asked. It took effort to get each word out.

"Are you not alright with it, Star? No, wait, you asked me a question, I should answer first," Jackie took her hand to her chin, pondering. "I am not always alright with it. Sometimes I am scared that Marco will decide that he likes you much more than he likes me, or that you two will want to be a normal couple after all and shut me out of it. But, on the other hand, I see that you make him happy, and that he makes you happy, and I wouldn't feel right stopping you two from making each other happy."

"And it doesn't bother you, when... if I make him happy, at all?" Star pressed.

"No," Jackie replied, almost too simply. "Not really. It never has, not with Marco, not with the boys I have been interested in before. It is not for lack of caring about him, I mean, I think I am in love with him, at least as much as you are. It is actually the other way around: because I care about him, when you make him happy, it mostly just makes me happy too. I guess I am just wired that way? I dunno, I already told you, I think I am weird..."

"Jackie, you are weird-awesome!" Star said, a bit too forcefully. "The thing is, what happens if I am not? If I can't be awesome about it like you are? If sometimes I worry or fret when Marco is happy with you? If I get jealous or feel selfish? If sometimes I feel like I am in a competition with you, that for me to win you would have to lose? If... I guess, if I am a horrible person?"

"Star, I think that's all just you being normal..." Star blinked. There was a first for everything, and certainly that was it for her name and that particular adjective. "But, well, I doubt very much you are a horrible person, or even that selfish, really. I mean, if you were, why are you telling me this? If you wanted to, I dunno, steal Marco from me, then the last thing you should probably be doing is telling me, right?"

"No, no, no, I don't want to do that!" Star answered, horrified. Then she remembered her glee at the advantage her magic connection with Marco could give her, and felt even more awful. "Ok, sometimes, a small part of me wants that. But I could never do that to Marco, or to you. I'd rather go back to how things were before than hurt you two, or abuse your trust... that's why I wanted to tell you how I feel, guess to... warn you? I dunno... not that I want to change things now, but..." She wasn't sure what she expected the human girl to do with the information, actually.

"Star... would it help if I told you how I felt this afternoon? When I was with Janna, knowing you and Marco were probably doing it? I am not asking you to feel the way I feel about this sort of thing, just to understand, and maybe, if you can come at it from my point of view, it will help you feel less bad when the situation is reversed." Jackie spoke and Star nodded. "Basically, I got reminded of the times I have seen you and Marco interact, how he looks at you, the stories he has told me about you, how he can't really stop talking about you. I imagined him having a good time, being happy with you, and, usually, when I know he is being happy, I feel happy too. Let me put it this way, if he called you and told you he was having really good ice-cream, and you knew you couldn't be there to have ice-cream with him or you didn't like ice-cream, would you be annoyed that he was enjoying ice-cream without you or just glad he was having a good day?"

"Who doesn't like ice-cream?! Also, Jackie, I don't think that's quite the same..." But Star wasn't sure she could quite pinpoint why exactly it wasn't.

"Maybe not. I guess I don't know how to explain it, then. I just don't necessarily connect him being happy with you or liking you with him not liking me... except..." Jackie went a bit somber for a moment. "I guess there was a time it bothered me. Friday, actually, when he said your name when we were having sex. Today doesn't bother me, or yesterday. If he is alone with you, it doesn't bother me, but it did bother me when he was with me... and maybe thinking of you..."

"He said my name?" Star tried processing the information. That had been the night with Tom, hadn't it? When she had seen Marco and Jackie, and she had called Marco's name. Had that really happened? Had she been seeing them through her bond with Marco? Had he seen her back? Was that why he had said her name and nothing else? Had he seen her... with Tom?

"He didn't tell you?" Jackie asked, interrupting Star's train of thought. "Oh, sorry, I shouldn't have brought that up with you before he did, Star, nevermind that."

"Jackie," Star finally was putting the pieces together. "I, I don't think that was because he was thinking about me..." she begun, but the words died in her mouth as the next realization hit her. "Wait! Was that why you two fought and why you told him to ask me out?!"

Jackie stared back in silence, then nodded. "It was when I knew for a fact that he liked you too, Star."

But, but Jackie has said that had been something that bothered her. So why ask Marco to get closer to her? It didn't make any sense! But for all the sense it didn't make, it had made Star happy last night and earlier that day, and it had made Marco happy, and it seemed to make Jackie mostly happy. So, perhaps there was something to the other girl's way of thinking that Star was just not seeing.

Either way, neither of them seemed to be able to find their words for the rest of the walk back to Jackie's place.

\----

"So, Janna, how much of that was putting an act for Star, how much putting an act for me, and how much was real?" Tom asked, darkly. His demeanor seeming a lot less friendly with her after the others departed. "You know I can coax the truth from you eventually, so this would be the time to come clean..."

"Mmmm," she made a show of thinking it out. She saw no point in making things too easy for the demon prince. "What if I prefer it for you to coax the truth from me, after all?"

"Fine," Tom sighed. His lip curved to the left and he opened his mouth slightly to show off a single sharp fang in an unnerving smirk. "Let's do this the hard way, then, seems like that is the order of the day. After all, you asked to be punished, didn't you?"

She did, of course. But Janna hoped Tom had gotten that she meant fun sexy punishment and not, well, literal torture. Right now, given the way he looked at her, hollow eyes smoldering dark red, it was not clear that he understood her intent, or cared. He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers. Two pillars of flame emerged to the thieving girl's sides, gracing her arms. The fire hurt and burned, but much less than she would have expected it to, more like an excessively hot shower than flesh charring blazes. When the flames stopped, there where two heavy chains going from the floor of Janna's living room to a pair of shackles on her wrists. She looked down to see an identical pair holding her legs.

"I want you to understand, Janna, that stealing that urn was incredibly stupid, and that attempting to use it without knowing anything about it was beyond idiotic..." he said, advancing towards her. 

He lowered his hands and the chains slid downwards through the floor and backwards along the surface, forcing Janna on her knees and bending her arms towards her back in an uncomfortable position. He extended his left index then and pushed the tip of his claw into Janna's forehead, until it drew a single drop of blood. Tom licked his finger, murmuring something in a language she couldn't understand. 

"Do you understand the kind of trouble you could have been in if Star and I had gotten here even minutes later?"

"Yes."

"Did you understand it before you took the urn?"

"No."

Tom seemed to hesitate at her response, clearly it was not what he expected to hear. "Would you have taken it anyways, had you known?"

"No."

"That's a LIE!" he growled. Eyes glowing fiercely, fire burning around him. Janna felt the shackles tighten and pull even further back, stretching her arms in a very painful manner. She felt afraid. For the first time since they had done it, she felt genuinely scared of the demon prince.

"Fine," she spat. "I would have taken it anyways, but I would have probably not unlocked it if I knew what was inside!"

He seemed surprised again. But he raised a hand and the chains gave out just a little bit, easing her pain back into a more bearable level of discomfort. "Why would you have still taken it then?!"

"I told you," Janna said, looking to the side, as annoyed at him as she was afraid. "Because I wanted to make sure I'd see you again. Didn't think the bell would necessarily be enough..."

She felt a powerful grip around her chin, as Tom forcefully turned her face back to look into his hollow burning eyes. But when she looked back, she saw the eyes were back to normal and Tom had a confused but calm expression. "That... that wasn't a lie..." 

He leaned forward, pressed his lips against her and kissed her. Despite the chains and the awkward position, Janna found herself reciprocating the kiss. Fiery passion flowed between the two of them as they welcomed and fought each other in the space between their mouths. Eventually, Tom pulled himself back up, smiling downwards at her.

"I believe, you still deserve to be... punished, some more," he winked at her. "But if you want it to stop, feel free to say so."

She most certainly did not, especially now that she knew for sure she was in no real danger. Or, at least, she had reason to hope that was the case. "Oh, believe me, there is still a lot of punishment you have left to do here, Tommy-boy! Besides, aren't you like, reading my mind now or something?" The way he seemed to know which of her words were true and which weren't was suspicious, to put it mildly.

"Not exactly. I can mostly just tell when you are lying for now." he explained. Well, that was interesting, Janna thought to herself.

"Fine. I hate you!"

"Lie!" Tom shouted and slapped Janna's cheek with the back of his right hand. Hard. Probably not as hard as he could, demon and all, but hard enough to send a confusingly exciting jolt of pain through her face.

"That did not turn me on!" she protested, on purpose, trying to keep a straight face.

"That... is a lie," Tom replied, grinning. "You are a freak."

"Well," she paused, "that is not a lie..."

Tom hit her again, on the other side, and at the same time she felt the chains tense behind her. The pain shot through her face and her arms at the same time. Janna felt herself getting wet. She knew Tom was truly phenomenally dangerous, that he could hurt her for real if he wanted, that he had the temper and he had cause. For some reason, that made Janna giddy inside. But also, the hottest part, truly, was the he was controlling himself, hurting her only as much as she could handle. Perhaps, less than what she could really handle.

Tom grabbed at the collar of her dark green t-shirt. He pulled down, using his claws to rip it open, letting her chest free without undoing the chains. He stared at her exposed breasts for a while, as if deciding what to do with them. Then he lowered both hands and began softly twisting her nipples. Janna felt the urge to squirm, but she could barely turn around given the way the chains pulled her back, pushing her exposed chest forward. Tom twisted and pulled for what felt like hours. Eventually she could not take it anymore.

"Tom, I want your cock!" she shouted. It was like a line out of a porno, but surely that would make him switch tracks.

"That... wasn't a lie." 

The demon raised an eyebrow and removed his pants. He walked over to Janna, until his purple member was right in front of her face, firm and pointing towards her. She had to stretch her neck to even begin to wrap her lips around the tip. But, as soon as she did, Tom trusted forward violently, pushing against her throat. She tried taking his dick deep, but he thrashed around, making her gag, seemingly more interested in keeping punishing her than on making her job easier. She felt herself reduced to sloppily fighting the intrusions with her tongue as Tom carelessly fucked her face.

Suddenly, she felt claws pinching both nipples. Janna yelled in pain and surprise, only to find that the demon took the opportunity to ram his cock deep down her throat. She felt nauseous, and found it hard to breathe. But as suddenly as it had entered her, Tom pulled back, taking his prick out of her mouth entirely. That's when Janna noticed the chains were gone. How long ago had Tom made them vanish?

"Crawl on your knees!" Tom commanded her, and she was only too eager to obey.

Janna felt a claw rip her underwear off. Then a pair of probing fingers pushing inside her wet folds. Moments after, she felt Tom's hands on her shoulders and his hard erection poking at her entrance. She thrust herself back at him before Tom had a chance to surprise her again. They moved each of their own volition, slamming violently against each other, mating like animals in her family living room's floor.

She felt her own climax building up, and moaned loudly. She felt Tom's hand forcefully slap her ass, causing her to contract around his cock, increasing the pressure and friction. Then a second slap came, and then a third, and soon it became part of their discordant rhythm together.

"I hate you!"

"That was a lie."

"I think you are a jerk!"

"... Lie."

"I only want power and magic from you!"

"... Lie."

"I want you, Tom!"

"..."

He grunted. She moaned. They came together and felt to the floor, exhausted. Janna felt bruised, and sore all over, but strangely satisfied.

They almost fell asleep like that, until she realized there was still an issue they needed to address. Two issues, really, but first things first. "So, Tom... about getting the house back in one piece..."

He groaned, tiredly. "Oh, right, sure." He began getting dressed, and she followed suit. "Janna, I can have demons guide every pebble of rubble, every splinter of wood, back to where it belongs. But I am going to need you to give me permission to see your surface thoughts, and I am going to need you to remember how everything looked before, room by room and wall by wall, until we have this whole thing fixed. I can't make plants grow, but you can always blame the garden on a car driving over it or something..."

"Do you need my permission to read my thoughts?"

"Usually, yes."

"And it will only be what I am thinking about, right this instant?"

"Yup, nothing but surface thoughts."

She thought it for a while. Well, it couldn't be any worse that what she had already revealed, could it? She shrugged her shoulders. "Sure. Go ahead!"

"Ok, good," Tom stopped, his eyes going wide. "Janna, you perv!"

"Sorry," she said with a smile. That was a lie, which he of course knew. But she focused on the house from then on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bitch to write. Next chapter should end Part I, and also give you all some more fluffy smut from our other main coupe(s?) :)


	9. Acts of Compersion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Star hatches and flawlessly executes a master plan of her own, a date is truly out of this world, and a main couple enjoys a well deserved happy ending, to the satisfaction of all parties!

## Chapter 09: Acts of Compersion

> **Continuity stardate:** This chapter takes place a week after the SvtFoE episode _"Just Friends"_ (S02E20b) and shortly before _"Face the Music"_ (S02E21). The story has diverged from the SvtFoE season 2 mainline.

The week that followed was surprisingly normal, almost eerily so; school, homework, family dinners, the works. To the troublemaker's girl relief, Janna's parents had arrived to a house almost in better shape than the one they left. The only exception being the barren and dead garden, which she managed to effectively blame on older drunk teens driving over it. Tom had even helped her fake the tracks.

All in all, her plan had worked almost flawlessly, giant snake or not. Tom had told her to keep the bell, and that he hoped to see her again. Jackie and Marco were still officially a couple at school, with Star seemingly keeping her own relationship with the boy under wraps. The later was greatly helped by the fact that Marco and his roommate had always been ambiguously close.

So, victory sweet victory, dance puppets dance! And yet, she could not help but feel a bit out of her depth even now. That Sunday night had been intense, in a way she had not expected it to be. Sure, the unlocking ritual going out of her control and summoning a snake monster was a bit unsettling and all. But really, the scariest part had been what happened after, with Tom. 

It was not just the chains and not just the forcefulness, but how it made her feel. Sure, Janna owned her own pair of chains, and Tom had made some comment about it when she had him restore that part of her room. But, she always had thought that, well, if there was going to be any tying up in her sex life, whenever it begun, she would be the one doing the tying. Now, in a weekend, most of her fantasies had gone from hypothetical to very much real, and her role had not been the one she had expected. The strangest thing was that she had enjoyed it; very much so, in fact. That was, she thought, the part that scared her the most.

Yeah, that must be it. It scared her how much she could get lost in the sensations of pain and pleasure, in the excitement of surrendering control, or the fun of their banter and back and forth. What if she lost control completely? What if Tom did? He had not harmed her, not really. The demon could kill her in an instant, and yet he had hurt her just enough to satisfy her own personal cravings, without so much as leaving a mark for the next morning. But wasn't he still dangerous nonetheless? Wasn't he unstable? Upon later reflection, Janna was, literally enough, playing with fire.

Star had tried to tell her to stay away from Tom, more than once over the week.

"I mean, Janna, I guess he is not that bad as a friend," the princess had said, grimacing as she forced herself to be fair. "He hangs out with Marco sometimes and it goes... alright. But, dating Tom? It can get seriously un-fun, believe me, I have been there."

"So, is dating the Diaz-Thomas hive-mind a much better idea, then?" Janna had sniped back. 

That managed to throw the mewman girl of her case. First, because she had to explain to her she didn't mean a literal hive-mind. Second, because Star had always made a weird face and excused herself whenever Janna asked about her relationship with Marco, or about the skateboarder girl in general. The princess and Marco had arrived together from his home every morning that week, which was not unusual. But, whenever they were in school, the princess mostly left him and Jackie alone together, and hung out with Janna or Starfan. Whenever the former tried probing her about it, Star found a way to avoid the subject altogether. She seemed in a good mood. In fact, Star was visibly happier and bubblier in general these days, compared to any in the weeks before, and she seemed to be in good terms with both Marco and Jackie. Still, she would not talk much to them or about them, while in school, not even with Janna.

Despite it all, Janna had to admit Star's advice regarding Tom seemed worth heeding. The magical princess had a pretty high tolerance for danger, and she could take care of herself far better than Janna could. Exciting as Tom was, what if he took things too far? If he got angry? Could she stop him? Get away?

But in the almost three days straight she had spent with the demon, menacing as he was, he had never truly harmed her. He had never harmed Star either, Janna thought, despite his anger issues. From what she knew, he had truly tried working on those problems too. In fact, that last night, after they had done it, after the violence and the punishment, he had been almost sweet. He had helped her repair the house, wall by wall, brick by brick, careful with the access she had granted him to her thoughts. After they were done, he had held her, and he had roamed a clawed hand through her hair, more mellow than she had ever seen him. He told her to call him again soon.

What if this was what scared her, then? She was attracted to Tom, sure, that was old news. But, was she falling for him? She knew he was not falling for her. Tom's true crush was Star, always would be. Too many questions, too many perils. Her plan had worked too well for her own good.

\----

Friday arrived and Star was still hesitant about her decision. Not her decision of dating Marco, of course. She would not miss their new situation for the world! Sure, she had opted for giving him and Jackie as much space as she could at school, but that was because, after all, she and her roommate had the afternoons for themselves. The weird thing was, that had not been too different from their dynamic before. Sure, there were more smooches now, on top of the friendly hugs, and they certainly had made use of her glitter bubble spell once or twice over the week. Yet, ninety percent of the time, they were what they had always been up to that point, the world's bestest besties. They laughed together, watched movies together, went hunting for magical gemstones together, and, ok, occasionally, just occasionally, made out together. A lot.

But there was one thing they hadn't done yet, a place they hadn't been to, which Star was saving as a surprise. Well, as half of a surprise. Carefully, she took Marco's scissors out of her purse and waited, leaning against the porch of the school. She waved at StarFan and Janna as they passed her by, but kept on waiting. She waited until it seemed like every student had already come out through that door. Every student except two. She waited some more. She did not mind the wait. It was not like her mind was making up ideas about what the other two teens might be getting up to inside the school buildings or anything of the sort, she told herself, unconvincingly.

Eventually, Marco and Jackie emerged through the door, holding hands. The boy's hair looked only slightly tousled, and it was pretty obvious, to Star at least, that they had been making out back there. An understandable delay, all things considered. She shrugged.

"Whoa, hey Star! Sorry to keep you waiting," Marco spoke hesitantly, looking down. He seemed about as not used to this whole thing as she was, which, in a way, was a relief. "Next time I can catch you home, I mean, if you prefer... or I can hurry up too... I..."

"I believe," Jackie said, with a smile and a raised eyebrow. "That this is where I hand him off. As he said, sorry for the delay, Star. But you get it the rest of the day, so I hope you don't mind too much!" She beamed a knowing grin at Star.

Star grinned back. "Actually, Jackie, are you busy this afternoon?"

"Well, I was planning to go do a few ramps, but nothing set in stone, really," she replied, a bit surprised. "Want to hang out? All three of us, or..."

"Actually, Jackie, I was thinking the two of you might want to get this afternoon, since it is the weekend and all. And well, I think I know just the place!" Star added, dramatically revealing the scissors she had hastily hid behind her. Her palms were sweaty on the handles and she had to make a small effort not to show her nerves. Well, fake it 'til you make it, she thought to herself.

"Star?" Marco asked surprised.

"Just trust me, ok?! You'll see, no need to take anything, or worry about missing dinner. I'll explain to your parents that you are out on a date, Marco!" she added, in a quick torrent of words. She had put some thought into her plan. But perhaps, not enough. "Jackie, you might want to text yours now, I guess?"

"But, why, Star?" Marco pushed. "Not that I am complaining, but I thought you said you had plans tonight..."

"I did," she admitted. "Plans for you two! This is it, or well, these are them!"

"But, I thought... I mean..." He looked at her, then at Jackie. He exhaled loudly. "I am not sure how to put this, Star, but, well, I am not complaining, I just don't understand..."

"Marco," Jackie raised a hand, shutting him up. "Let me handle this, alright?"

The human girl grabbed Star and huddled close, as to not be overheard.

"Star, are you sure about this?" she whispered into the princess' ear. "I thought you weren't too comfortable with, well... with Marco and I, so, why?"

"Yeah, well, that's part of the reason," Star replied, not bothering to whisper back. "I guess I have been thinking about what you said, last time, and want to give that a try. You know, your thing, whatever the opposite of jealousy is..."

She eyed Marco, waiting for his reaction to her tacit admission of having been jealous before. He didn't look surprised. Mostly, he seemed relieved. 'Ok, so much for being discreet and inconspicuous, Star,' she thought to herself. Sometimes it was a pain how well Marco could read her.

"Anyways, the point is: there is this place I had been thinking of visiting with Marco for a while, but this whole week I have been thinking about it, and the more I think, the more it feels right that it is the two of you going there instead! There are plenty of other fun places left to visit in the wide wild multiverse, so you are not entirely off the hook on me taking you out on dates, Marco Diaz," she jokingly prodded the underside of his chin with a finger. "But, well, I think, today, it should be you two! I really hope you like it and..."

She was interrupted by a hug from Marco, and a deep kiss. As soon as he let go, Jackie briefly jumped at her and hugged her too.

"Thanks, Star! But, if you feel uncomfortable, now or in the future, let me know, alright? You don't have to prove anything to us or pretend you are ok unless you truly are," she spoke. "Plus, well, you know I don't want to monopolize Marco either!"

Star laughed. Honestly, in the time since their first date, Star was sure she had been spending more time overall with Marco than Jackie had been. Hell, even before they were dating, Star and Marco spent more time together than he did with Jackie.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," she pushed the scissors forward and concentrated on their destination. "No more time to waste. Of you go!"

She pushed Marco first, then Jackie, closing the portal after them. With a sight, she let herself collapse, sitting on the floor. Once she stopped focusing on smiling, a look of worry and doubt settled on Star's face. Was she doing the right thing? Could she handle it? What if she couldn't handle it?

\----

The oval pink portal opened up on top of a large circular pillow, far too large to fit on most rooms the human kids had ever been in before. It stood among an infinite sea of similarly fluffy pillows of all shapes, sizes, colors and, presumably, degrees of softness, judging from their appearance. The pillows extended in every direction over the plane. As far as Marco's eyes could see, Jackie and himself seemed to be alone in the entire cushion ocean. Above them, an endless space was softly illuminated by bright balls of multicolored light. They seemed far too close to the surface, and too well defined, to be stars. In between the spheres, ran endlessly long ribbons of translucent fabric, wider than the two of them were tall. Every color seemed to be represented too in the canopy of ribbons, giving the landscape a vibrancy of hues that seemed almost excessive, but stopped short of overwhelming the senses, remaining pleasing to the eyes. The air was similarly saturated with sundry pleasant, yet reasonably subtle, aromas, that seemed to come from nowhere in particular.

The particular pillow they landed on was red: the exact red of Marco's hoodie. It was hard enough to walk on if needed, but soft enough that when they had originally landed on it, sitting, they felt no harsh impact. The silky ribbon right on top of them was ocean green. Clearly Star had planned this to the last detail, at least in choosing their landing location on this strangely comfortable dimension.

"Whoa," Jackie muttered, wide eyes looking around in every direction. "This is... incredible." It was no overstatement.

Marco, more used by now to the amazing vistas of far flung dimensions, was the first to recover his focus long enough to notice the items and the notes in the middle of 'their' pillow. He grabbed one of the notes and glanced at its contents, "Hey, this looks like Star's handwriting!"

"Oh, what does it say?" Jackie finally replied, once she was able to pry her gaze away from the rivers of reflective multicolored silk in the sky. "You know, Marco, when she did that field trip, I thought she was showing us the best dimension. Like, she called it the dimension of Wonders and Amazements. But this, this is something else... are all the dimensions you two travel to this cool?"

"Well..." Marco started. Certainly there had been worse places they had visited. "All are kind of amazing in their own way, really, but not all this comfortable," he spoke. It was the truth, and if it made him sound cool and knowledgeable to Jackie, all the better.

"So, Marco, the note?" she reminded him after a moment.

"First, take of your clothes."

"Woah! Ok, Diaz, sure, but, you know, we have the whole afternoon for that..." Jackie replied, with a laugh and a shrug.

"No, no... I mean, that's, what Star's note says," Marco clarified, flustered once more. "I was just reading, I didn't mean..."

"Oh, well, if Star says so..." the girl shrugged again and began pulling up her t-shirt. Clearly Jackie didn't exactly dislike the idea, either way. "Is there more to it, though?"

"Second, grab some food," he read on. Looking down, he noticed there was a picnic basket. He opened to find two sandwiches inside. For some reason, they seemed somehow unearthly, yet familiar, to him. There was also an assortment of fruits, some he recognized from Earth, a few he did not, as well as a few sodas, juices and two mini champagne bottles. "Seems like she left us provisions..."

"Very thoughtful of her," Jackie murmured absentmindedly, somewhere behind Marco.

"Third, use the vials. Parenthesis: it is oil, it goes on your skin," Marco kept reading. He looked down to see a ribbon around two ornamented glass bottles and an opaque black crystal. "Fourth, hold onto the crystal. Do not touch until after the oils. Triple exclamation mark. I will fetch you both tomorrow morning, try to be decent. Winky face. P.S. There is a restroom both behind the big green triangle cushion... man, she did plan this one through..." It was not like Star to be this detailed in her ideas. She usually made things up as she went along. Then again, Marco thought, it wasn't as if she was going to be along for this particular trip. Maybe she felt more compelled not to leave things to chance if it was Jackie and Marco who would be left to their own devises in an unknown dimension, especially after the Hekapoo incident...

"So, it would be a shame if we don't follow her instructions, right? Given how much effort she clearly put into this," Jackie remarked, slowly, almost whispering on the boy's ear. "With that in mind, aren't you a bit behind on the list, Marco?"

Marco turned around when he felt her hand on his shoulder. His eyes opened wide and his mouth hung low as he took in the view. Jackie had fully disrobed as he read Star's letter, and now stood at arm length from him, entirely naked. Perky breasts and toned slim body drawing his eyes, soft skin beckoning to be touched, sparkling eyes beaming at him over her smile. Long lean legs ending in a bare smooth triangle. Marco had been seeing a lot of Jackie these last few weeks, yet it still always left him speechless, particularly now that he had been caught by surprise. "Wow," he replied simply.

"So, Marco Diaz, still into your boring old girlfriend?" Jackie joked at him, clearly pleased with his reaction. "Or does that become too ordinary after dating magical princesses?"

It took Marco a few moments to process the words, or to collect his thoughts back from the sight in front of him. "Jackie, I've always been into you, I can't imagine not being into you. You can't ever be 'boring' or 'old' anything to me. Honestly... what I still don't get is what you, well, either of you, see in me..."

"Plenty of things, Diaz," she retorted, with a smile. "Can't speak for Star, but I can see that you are brave, and caring, and handsome, and open-minded, and well... clearly well traveled," she looked around. "But right now, I think I'd like to see a lot more of you. After all, Star's orders, and is only fair."

She winked at him and Marco went red once more. Then, smiling calmly back, he began removing his hoodie, as Jackie walked towards the picnic basket and grabbed one of the sandwiches. "Mmmmhh... wow, I fthink, this is 'e besth sandwich I 'ave ever had, like, ev'r!" she spoke, with her mouth still full.

Eventually, Marco sat besides her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Jackie nested herself comfortably against the boy's naked torso and ran a hand through his leg. The sandwich was indeed extraordinary, and Marco now had a pretty good idea of the kind of trouble Star had probably gone through to get it. If he had known it was this good, he perhaps would have not given her so much grief about risking their lives pulling the stuff out of sleeping monsters. It was hard to believe, but it was absolutely worth it.

"So, Jackie, are you still sure you are ok with it all? Me and Star, I mean?" he ventured. Marco was still incredulous at his luck, and maybe a bit worried that by asking the two of them so often, such luck would come to an end. But it didn't feel right to not check on how Jackie felt about it.

"Yeah... I mean, clearly you still seem to like me and, well, look around, this place is incredible. So, it is pretty obvious, there are perks of sharing you with Star!" Jackie declared, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Honestly, I kinda wanted to ask about the two of you. I... I want you to tell me everything," she bit her lip.

Not without significant awkwardness, Marco managed to relate the events of the past week to Jackie. A lot of it was fairly mundane: movies, nachos, inter-dimensional hunting trips. At first, it was difficult for him to even tell Jackie about making out with Star, or, worse, sleeping with her. It felt wrong to say that to the skateboarder girl. He was pretty sure he would feel at least a bit bad if Jackie were talking about another guy to him. But instead of seeming uncomfortable, she actually pressed him further whenever he mentioned anything in that direction, with a curious look and a smile in her lips. When he described Star riding atop him, Marco felt himself getting aroused by the memory, despite his best efforts. He worried that the girl now sitting on his lap would notice. To his surprise, Jackie reached back and stroked him.

"Heh, sorry," he muttered.

"About what?" she smiled at him, and turned around to kiss him. "Actually, that does sound pretty hot. Glad you had fun, dude."

"Are you sure it doesn't bother you, Jackie?"

"Hey, as long as you don't get bored of me, and as long as I have you for myself right now, it mostly just turns me on," she commented. Marco was sure that reaction was getting him harder than even her hand's attentions. "But, well, is Star alright with it, though?" she added, suddenly pensive.

"I... I don't know," Marco replied truthfully. "But, well, she basically arranged this for us... I... I think she is trying to be alright with it. Not sure if that's a good thing..." Again, Marco wondered what he would do if it were the other way around, if Jackie, or Star, were dating someone else and he had to choose between not dating her or sharing her with another guy. He thought he could do it, thinking otherwise just felt too hypocritical to consider, but he wasn't sure.

"Well, Marco, I think it might help if you keep her reassured that you love her too," Jackie replied. "I mean, it is pretty obvious to me that you do, but it might not be so obvious to her." She paused for a moment, looking up into the uncanny sky of the dimension. Finally, she turned back to him with a broad smile. "That said, how about you do that after we have finished enjoying her generous gift, I am getting really... curious about that oils and crystal bit."

They stood up and walked back to the center of the pillow. Marco took his bottle first, looked at it carefully, opened it and smelled its contents. "Wow, this looks like pretty fancy stuff, Jackie, whatever it is. The venetian glass, the full-bodied fragrance, the rich texture of the oils! It is exquisite!"

"And they say Star is the princess," joked Jackie, amused, as she opened up the other vial and poured a slight stream in her hand. Marco felt her touch on his shoulders, the oil was warm on contact, and he felt quickly relax as it spread on his skin. Jackie's hands continued along his back. She slapped his glutes softly with damp hands, which for some annoying reason reminded him of Janna. Finally, he caught on and began pouring some of the oil on his own hands, before starting to apply it to Jackie's torso and soft chest. She gasped, and smiled an easy bright smile at him.

They took a long time to cover each other in the soothing warm liquids, caressing each other's body calmly as they went along. They explored slowly, comfortably, in a way they had not been able to match before. Not on their first time, when nervousness and anticipation prevented such leisure. Not any of the nights Jackie's parents had been at home. Nor the night of the concert, where excitement and unspoken worries prevailed. They kissed as their hands roamed every inch of each other's skin.

Their excitement was such that they almost forgot the note, or the steps, or the crystal. Eventually, however, Marco remembered. He grabbed the opaque gemstone-like object on one hand, and pressed the other side against Jackie's palm. They both felt a jolt of electricity. Marco, more experienced in those matters at least, recognized it as a touch of magical energy. He felt light. Literally light. Both of their feet left the ground, as they floated upwards towards the streams of silk.

"Oh, woah, what is this?" Jackie yelled in surprise.

"I don't know," Marco replied. He smiled at her reassuringly and pressed on for a deep kiss. After their mouths separated once more, he added, "but I trust Star, so lets go with it."

\----

Star felt it when the two of them left the ground. At least, she thought she could feel it. She had been feeling things all afternoon, things that scared her, and excited her, and amused her. In truth, she was not sure how much was just her imagination, and how much was the link. She had begun thinking about her connection with Marco by that noun: link. It seemed more palatable to her than considering it a magical bond or chain, or even string. It was complicated stuff, alright? And is not like she had Glossaryck around to ask. Nor would she ever bring this stuff up to her mom, which was the only source of information on her magic she had left!

Whatever it was, it had gotten stronger that whole week, though. Star had often felt a tingle in her lips while in the cafeteria, sitting with Janna, only to look around and catch a glimpse of Marco and Jackie kissing. She still felt a bit envious when that happened, hard as she tried not to. But she also felt a feeling of happiness within her. Likely, that second sentiment came from Marco, through their link. Still, after her conversation with Jackie, she had tried to make that feeling her own. She wanted to be happy for them, she really did. Sometimes, she even succeeded. Their date tonight was her latest, and most ambitious, effort on that front.

The dimension she had picked was artificially created. A sort of magical extreme version of a popular courting tradition in Mewnie. The place had existed for a long time, and most of the required magic was weaved into the dimension itself. Still, Star had spent a good deal of time at night that week practicing the levitation spell that went into the crystal centerpiece. It was a simple spell, but one she had long been stubbornly uninterested in learning, until she had a real use for it.

She had anticipated getting emotions back from Marco, even across dimensions, as a possibility. She had counted on it! It still surprised her how strong they were. A few minutes after they went through the portal, Star had felt herself blush, for no reason. Then, she briefly sensed the taste of her favorite sandwich in the whole multiverse. That was strange, by the way, since she had never gotten any emotions from Marco regarding food, only regarding things like makeouts and him being in bed with Jackie, or with Star herself. Maybe just eating with someone he liked triggered the link? Maybe the sandwich was just that good!

Not long after, she had felt herself getting warm, and wet. She had wondered if that meant Jackie and Marco were already doing it. She closed her eyes, as it sometimes helped her sense things better, but felt only a wave of calm and reassurance wash through her mind, while still leaving her slightly aroused. Her mind seemed to vividly recall her first time with Marco, as if someone where recounting it to her.

Now she sat in her bed, in her room, and she felt herself surprised out of nowhere, followed by a happy light elation. She was pretty sure they had used the crystal. There was no way for her to sense the crystal itself, of course, but the feelings had to be coming from Marco and matched her own when she had tested the spell. Star felt her heart quicken and her cheeks glow bright red. She wondered if the arousal came from Marco, or from her own fantasies about taking the boy out to that place. The princess felt regret at having given that up by sending him with Jackie instead, then she felt guilty about that regret. Those feelings, clearly, came from within.

She closed her eyes and opened them in shock once again! She had seen a flash of Jackie's naked body pressed against an ocean green silk fabric, Marco's delicious naked torso pressing against her, kissing her passionately. Was she imagining that, or could she really watch them? No, it clearly was the truth. The image had been unmistakably real. She had seen them once, when actively casting the Seeing Eye spell, and that was clearly the origin of the link. She had also caught some very vivid flashes that night with, well, with Tom. But this time the images were even more detailed and clear, so much so that it was impossible for her to honestly confuse them with her own imagination. How much stronger was the link now than then?

The mewman girl took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. At first, it was only darkness. Then she saw the bright pulsating spheres of light and green mist she had seen a week ago, when she was with Marco. Except this time, fainter, dimmer, further away, there was a third sphere. Star focused on that sphere and was hit by a wave of strong pleasurable sensations, mostly centered around her left breast. Then, the picture shifted again.

"Oooh, Diaz," Jackie exclaimed, as her boyfriend's lips and tongue enveloped her left nipple. Star could see it clearly now, from a comfortable third person perspective. The naked human girl sliding upwards slowly along the silk ribbon, skin glistering with sensual oil. Marco's lean muscular body pressing against her, shiny as well with the scented liquid. His hand was reaching between his girlfriend's legs, easily slipping in between her folds, given the external, and internal, lubrication.

Star felt those fingers too. Sort of. The sensations seemed muted compared to being there, but only barely. Still, instinctively, she reached between her own legs, adding her physical stimulation the psychic one she was receiving. Emotions vied for control of her mind: jealousy at Jackie, which she tried to fight; guilt at spying on her friends once more, which she sought to ignore; overpowering elation, which she attempted to kindle.

"Jackie, slide up!" called Marco. With great athletic dexterity, the girl complied, pushing herself faster upwards along the floating fabric. As her belly reached face height with him, Marco stopped her with his hands on her waist, and began kissing the inside of her thighs. Star felt herself shiver and her mouth wet, somehow linked now to both of their sensations. A green gleam seemed to pervade the edge of her vision, but it left the scene in front of her unimpeded.

Marco's tongue darted inside the skateboarder girl, eliciting a loud moan of pleasure. As he moved under her, Star felt his tongue lap around her own crotch, tracing an intricate dancing pattern. She felt her legs buckle, even as she sat, and then, she felt them not at all. She discovered, briefly, that she could not move or open her eyes. But instead of terrified, she felt at ease, and yet, hot.

Jackie moaned in pleasure and Star's mind replicated the sensations. Marco and the girl rolled over, sliding out from a side of the silk ribbon, falling slowly upwards. Floating in mid air, they climbed atop each other's body, until their mouths met in a kiss and, seconds later, Marco's member penetrated her. For infinitely long seconds they made love in mid air: weightless, unconstrained, impossibly intimate. There, tethered to nothing but each other, Marco rhythmically thrust into Jackie, as she wrapped her arms and legs around him, pulling him towards her with all her strength and desire. Eventually they landed into another, higher, silk ribbon of a soft pink hue. There they continued the motions, faster, more savagely, racing together towards the inevitable release.

It was impossible for Star to feel jealousy then. How could she envy Jackie, when she felt every wonderful thing the human girl felt? How could she be angry that Marco was with someone else, when it brought him such joy and pleasure, and she felt what he felt as well? With every thrust, every moan, every pair of hands grasping the aerial sheets, she felt both of their sensations. An overwhelming mix of emotions and physical stimuli, too strong for a single mind to contain.

There was an instant there, where Star knew, truly knew, that Marco did love her, and that he loved Jackie too. She also knew Jackie liked and admired Star, on a visceral level. She knew as well what her own feelings were. Star knew she could make this work, this whole thing. Marco, Jackie, the spell, the link, whatever it was. Dark magic or not.

But then she knew something else. She knew there was a fourth mind in there with them, alien and distant, laughing at the smallness of her epiphany. A green smirking chasm of unearthly force, that knew the horrifying cost behind all happily ever afters. That thought slipped from her mind just an instant after, as did her certainty about the other two. Forgetting all but the scene she now witnessed.

A level removed, however, she could still see their movements, and feel their mounting arousal. She could feel Marco inside of her just as well as Jackie herself could, and she felt also the, to her, strange sensations of doing the same act from Marco's point of view. 

"Maaaarco!" she called, exactly as Jackie did.

"Jackiee!" she heard Marco call, and almost followed suit herself.

A synchronized wave of pleasure hit all three minds as their bodies climaxed as one. Two together in a silky support, one alone in her room, in a dimension far away.

"Wow, Marco, remind me to like, get Star the biggest gift I can possibly come up with for her birthday..." Jackie finally spoke, gasping. Slowly, their bodies began descending back into the ocean of pillows. Marco smiled and held on tightly onto his girlfriend's frame. "Better yet, bring her here, and... eh... thank her on my behalf." She laughed.

"Oh, don't worry, I plan to!" Marco announced, with a smirk, which earned him a mock punch on the shoulder.

Star smiled at them, as the scene faded from her mind and she felt herself return to her body and to her room. She felt her jealousy melt, at least for now. She felt so happy about her friends, so hopeful for the future, and only slightly embarrassed about having spied on them again.

She also felt scared, somewhere deep in her mind, and she didn't know why.

\----

#### END of Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-long Author's Note:
> 
> So, here you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The end... of the beginning. To everyone's surprise, it ends on Jarco! ;) (Season 3 intro be damned)
> 
> First of all, for those who are long time readers of this fic, apologies for the month-long hiatus. Life got just slightly overwhelming from mid May to now. I knew that was going to be the case ahead of time, but I thought I could get Chapter 9, and thus the end of the arc, out, before I became too busy. At some point, though, the decision became between postponing Chapter 9 until now, or rushing it badly. I opted for the former. I will do my best to resume weekly or biweekly posting, starting Part II within two weeks from now.
> 
> One thing I haven't decided, is how to publish Part II and beyond. This whole thing started as outright porn on adult-fanfiction.org, with only the first chapter planned originally, and grew from there. Part I, thus, can be at best characterized as porn with plot, and I have tried my best to cram a sex scene per chapter. I don't think that's what I want to do with Part II. Don't get me wrong, there will still be pretty detailed smut, but the idea is the plot will take the center stage, and most chapters will not contain a sex scene. Instead, I might do a big sex scene every 3 or 4 chapters, to accompany, but not define, the plot. So, given that, and not being that familiar with AO3 conventions, what do people suggest: a) Continue story in same fic? b) Continue story in M rated fic in same series, with optional E-rated smut chapters? c) Continue story in E-rated fic which will only occasionally live up to the rating?
> 
> Either way, things to look forward to, if you have enjoyed this so far: 
> 
> More poly-V actual Starco+Jarco relationship! 
> 
> More strange, BDSM-y, sorta messed up, Jantom! 
> 
> Mystery Big Bad and actual world(s)-level stakes! 
> 
> Aaaand... "Face the Music" will still be in continuity! (Season 3 almost certainly won't be, though)


	10. [P2] Under the Shimmer, and Rubies and Pearls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which preparations for a grand event are under way, happy relationships abound, a princess rebels against authority, Janna gives her views as to the institution of monarchy and Glossaryck makes a speech about rivers.

# Part II: Princess Song

## Chapter 10: Under the Shimmer, and Rubies and Pearls

> **Continuity stardate:** Chapters 10 to 12 take place during the span of SvtFoE episode _"Face the Music"_ (S02E21), but the timeline has diverged enough that some important scenes will play out very differently from canon. Previous episodes are in continuity for this fic, episodes after S02E21, generally speaking, are not.

The boundless topography of pan-dimensional space stretched out in its unimaginably vast cardinality, yet his eyes surveyed all of its limitless contours. The endlessly forking streams of possibility and converging river mouths of inevitability extended into the unfathomable horizon of time itself, yet his gaze could travel far among the paths, to the deaths and births of universes. For he was mighty Omnitraxus Prime, master of space and custodian of time.

Today, however, the great Omnitraxus found himself vexed and perturbed. For weeks he had peered into the structure of infinity itself, trying to find the destination of the magical drain. Now, a terrifying new layer had affixed itself to the issue. One that was completely unforeseen, even by one such as himself, mighty among the mighty, wise among the wise.

Somehow, magic had started flowing out of many regions of the cosmos at once, across dimensions, sometime around a month and a half ago, relative to the Mewni time stream. His core region of the multiverse, spanning Mewni and a billion other major dimensions, seemed to be central to the disruption. But it was not the drain itself that preoccupied Omnitraxus. The original drain was a foreseen event, tied to a fate he understood, even if only in the broadest of strokes. It was a fate that involved him and the royal family, and which would lead to his death, albeit perhaps only temporarily. But, more importantly, it would also lead to a satisfactory conclusion for a long standing wrinkle in this part of the great infinity. It was a shock that had to happen; a necessary stanza in the symphony of existence. He could read that much in the big picture, in the larger scale of the flows of destiny through the multiverse, and so, he had not dared look any further into his own role.

Today, however, the song of the multiverse was discordant. The streams of possible futures had shifted, and the entire tone and direction of all that was, all that would and could be, had been yanked towards a much darker conclusion, with all the elegance of a reluctant dog being forcefully pulled by the leash. The magic drain was flowing somewhere else. Fate and destiny had been altered. The continuum itself had been knocked from its primordial tracks. Worst of all, it had happened right under Omnitraxus' skeletal nose.

Despite his vast powers, Omnitraxus Prime was not all-knowing. With but a thought, he could see any one place in space and any one point in time along any of the many paths of probability which lay before him, but that did not help him when he did not know at least the general nature of that which he sought. Neither did Omnitraxus know which locations or events were involved in the cosmical aberration at hand. Thus, he had already begun the laborious process of following the threads in the tapestry of time towards the origin of the change, tracing each unexpected event to its proximal cause, then that one to its own. 

The dissonant elements went back further than he originally had expected. Large alterations were perceptible through a period of many weeks, once he was aware of the general bent of the change. It was possible that the more subtle origins of the abnormality stretched into long gone millenia, but they had grown the most in the last dozen days or so, incubating barely below the threshold of his powerful awareness. Nevertheless, he would locate the original damage and correct it, for he was Omnitraxus Prime. What were to him a few weeks, or even a thousand years, out of eons of time? What were a few dimensions out of the incalculable expanse of multiversal space?

But what the boundless Omnitraxus did not anticipate, was that, as he himself pursued, the source of the change sought him out as well. It was a split second before he noticed the viridescent malignancy embedded within his own core, the spiderweb of corrosive magic crisscrossing the crystal fields near his nucleus. He felt the drained magic converge into his core self with supernal force, with undeniable purpose, and saw the path of his own existence approach its final destination.

"Who are you?" Omnitraxus asked, with his last words. Aware that the streams all converged in front of him, into a future that excluded the possibility of his own permanence. In the face of true and final death, his greatest regret was to never have figured the mystery of such an unexpected unraveling of providence itself.

"I am hope, triumphant!" the voice in the void responded.

Then the mighty Omnitraxus Prime was no more.

\-----

"Perfect Princess Moon, she's great in every way. Everything she says and does is absolutely right..."

Star made a face and tried her best to suppress an annoyed groan. Her mother, Moon the Undaunted, Queen of Mewni, and the subject of such a saccharine paean, either did not notice, or pretended not to. On the other side of the magic mirror, Star's mom kept looking at the aging songstrell with a pleasant, although entirely non-committal royal smile. Moon also seemed not to hear the faint stifled giggling coming from the left of Star.

"Her hair is silky soft. Her favorite color's pink. She flosses every day, and she never needs to sleep!"

Did her mom even like pink? Star rarely saw Moon wearing anything other than blue. The barely visible bags under Moon's eyes also told Star that, whatever the song said, her mom would certainly benefit from some more shut eye time in her busy schedule.

"The perfect Princess Moon, she's nice in every way. Always in a sunny mood, even on the cloudy days."

A sunny mood? She could count the times a week her mom wore a genuine smile with the fingers of one hand, and that was when she lived with her in Mewni. Wait, was it because Star lived with her in Mewnie that Moon did not smile regularly? The self-doubting thought wormed into the mewman girl's mind before she quickly dismissed it for the falsehood it was. Nah. As much as the young princess caused Queen Moon no end of troubles, she was fairly certain that her mother loved her and was happier with Star around than without her. It was just that there seemed to be very little joy that the job of ruling Mewni didn't take away from you. Star grimaced. That was a depressing thought that she found much harder to suppress.

"Her sugar-coated heart of gold will make everything fine. She plays with puppies and kisses kitty cats, eats her veggies and smells like lavendeeeer."

Star grimaced again. But it was a less heavy frown, directed mostly at how absurd and forced those lyrics were. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Marco silently lifting up a laser puppy, while Jackie leaned towards the boy to exaggeratedly smell his hair, parodying the verses. Now it was the princess time to be forced to conceal a chuckle. Fortunately the angle of the mirror did not allow her mom to spot the two humans, who were sitting on her bed, so long as they kept quiet.

"Perfect Princess Moon. She's a fan of smiles. Perfect Princess Moon will be our que-ee-e-e-e-een!"

The songstrell ended the awful piece, and Moon clapped approvingly. Star could not stand it any more, "Ugghh! Mom! Worst. Song. Ever. Do I have to have one of those written about me?"

"Yes, Star. It's a tradition as old as the kingdom itself," her mother calmly explained. It was a tradition due for abolishment, if you asked the princess, like so many corny pointless old ceremonies. Her irritated face made her opinion on the matter amply clear. Moon, undaunted, continued with even greater enthusiasm, "and is your official introduction as Future Queen to the people of Mewni!"

Star's mocking response about how generic the song was, was met with a much less approving tone from the queen. Mother dear made it pretty clear that plans for Star's Song Day were well underway, and that she had already sent one of those awful songstrells her way. Moreover, the princess' feelings on the matter did not make a lick of difference on that either.

"Hmmmmmm... fine," Star relented, or seemed too. There was no point in arguing with her mom when it got to this point. She would deal with the songstrell instead, or rather, not deal with him. Avoidance and making herself scarce had always worked better for her in the past, when she had to get out of annoying ceremonies and royal events, compared with trying to change the queen's mind.

"And remember, Star, the people of Mewnie like their Princess Songs light and fluffy," Moon added, unhelpfully. The last thing that Star wanted associated with her right now was a light and fluffy piece, specially if that also meant one as devoid of any individual personality as her mom's had been. "Do you think you can handle that?

"Yes, mom," Star said by way of sullen goodbye and hung up on the mirror. Carefully choosing words that her mother would interpret as an agreement on the course of action, while she could later claim to have meant only as an acknowledgement. She could handle it. She just wasn't going to. She would not even meet the damn songstrell, if she could help it.

"So, Star, dude, are we going the be able to go see this Song Day of yours?" Jackie asked with a grin, clearly oblivious to the plans brewing in the princess' head. "I've never been to Mewni. Sounds way fun!"

Jackie's head leaned to rest on Marco's shoulder, as her hand rested on the boy's upper leg. Though there were clear limits they did not cross, both Star and Marco had become a lot more comfortable respectively seeing and partaking in that sort of affectionate displays when the three of them were alone together. Jackie herself probably had never had a problem with Star and Marco showing affection, but the princess was still getting fully used to that part, beyond their effusive friendly hugs. So, mostly, it was the princess watching the two human teens flirt and show their affection.

It surprised Star how quickly such gestures had gone from making her feel envious and insecure, to feeling just right. Truth be told, Marco and Jackie were adorable together. It also helped that Marco's love for Star seemed just as genuine as the one he displayed for the other girl, and that Jackie and herself had been becoming closer and closer as friends as well.

Nonetheless, despite their recent closeness, Star had not even thought of inviting Jackie. Originally, she had figured out that if she had to bring a friend, if she absolutely was unable to extricate herself from that awful Song Day tradition, then it would be Marco. Then again, why not invite both him and Jackie? Again, she was a very dear friend, and is not like the three of them hadn't learned to be discreet about their arrangement. Maybe Janna could go too? But still, there was a part of Star that did not want to have to introduce Jackie, or, if she was fully honest with herself, Jackie's relationship with Marco, to her family. "There is not going to be a Song Day, Jackie! There is no way I am getting one of those insipid awful songs written about me..."

"But..." Marco pleaded, giving her puppy eyes - double puppy eyes, since he was still holding the laser puppy too, who eyed her as well. Then, breaking into a good natured mocking sing-song voice, the boy added, "But, perfect princess Star, you are supposed to be nice in every way!" He laughed.

The princess would have been hurt hearing that from anyone else, but something about Marco mocking how little the song applied to Star actually made her feel better about the whole thing. That said, no way he was going to get away with making fun of her like that. Star walked up to Marco slowly, with a bright cheerful smile... and punched him in the arm. See if he found that 'nice'.

"Oww," Marco winced. Jackie gave him a sympathetic look, followed by a shrug. She knew he deserved that one, and so did he. "Ok, ok, Star, fine, that song was awful, and obviously it says nothing about your mom, or you for that matter. But I still think it might be easier to just go along with it and don't let it bother you. It will keep your mom off your back, and, well, what's the worst that could happen?"

\----

"Well, this is... unexpected," the monster spoke in a deadly cold voice. It was not to his advantage to show his surprise in his tone, and thus, he did not. But truth was, he was puzzled. Everything up to this point had gone, generally speaking, according to plan. His manipulations had worked almost to perfection so far, the princess and Ludo had both proven utterly predictable, puppets unaware of their own strings. Up until now, Ludo knew nothing, even as Toffee extended his pawn's hand to use the wand he now inhabited.

The 'borrowed' magic under his command had been growing by the day. That is, until earlier that morning. Now he felt it being pulled away from him, redirected somewhere else. Maybe Star had found a way to fight him? To drain the magic from the other end of the wand? No, impossible, the child could not possibly understand enough to do so, she had not even realized he was siphoning the magic away, not once had she noticed in all these months. Moon then, perhaps? Preposterous! The high commission? No, they all put together couldn't find a giant hydra in the middle of a shallow corn field.

"Glossaryck, I don't suppose you'd tell me what is happening," he ventured. He hardly trusted the little man. 'I don't have a side' meant he wasn't secretly looking for a chance to help Star, and maybe, just maybe, he was even truthful about that. But it also meant he had no particular reason to look after Toffee's interests either.

"Well, the magic is flowing elsewhere," Glossaryck replied, without elaboration. Typical. Well, it was better than a direct refusal.

"I see that," he observed. Two green glowing eyes, not truly his own, but no longer Ludo's either, narrowed dangerously. "Where is it flowing to, and why?"

"Hard to tell," the little blue man replied, unfazed. He sat crossing his legs, floating in mid air.

"Is it flowing back?" Toffee pressed on.

"Well... no, not exactly," Glossaryck replied, as his whole body rolled around an axis parallel to the ground, his head ending upside down as he seemed to examine something on Toffee's wand crystal.

"Then, where?" the monster kept his tone controlled, there was no use in angry demands when it came to the book's inhabitant. Besides, if Glossaryck was trying to hide something, calm and care were what was called for, in order to spot the evasions and to ask the right questions.

"I don't know," was the response. Ludo's eyes grew wide under the other monster's control.

"You don't know? Does this mean you don't know now or you can't know, little man?" Toffee finally grinned, feeling sure that he had figured out the magic being's game. "I know you can see into the future. Are you saying there is no way for you to answer my question, despite that?"

"See into the future? See into the future? Mmmm... Toffee, there is not such a thing as 'the future', not in the singular at least," Glossaryck declared by way of a response, rolling on the spot again so that he was no longer upside down, then floating to position himself at arm length from the immortal monster's borrowed face and emphasizing the quotes around 'the future' with his fingers. "You see, time is like a stream, one which is constantly bifurcating..."

"Yes, Glossaryck, I understand possible and probable futures well enough," he cut him off, annoyed. No way he was going to let this discussion get sidetracked into a lecture, specially one as basic as that one. "Are you saying time took a path you were not expecting, or that was different from the future or futures you foresaw, then?"

"No," Glossaryck shock his head. Then his tongue slowly flowed out from his mouth, scratching his own left ear, before he continued. "Toffee, yesterday the most likely future had Moon confronting you tomorrow's night. In all but a few streams you kill her... she gets better," the little man clarified as he saw the monster's malevolent smirk. 

"That future no longer exists, nor any of those around it," Sir Glossaryck of Terms continued, in a grave tone. "It doesn't exist even if you were to muck around with time, it is no longer a possible future, not even in the past. Mmmmhh... how do I explain this? We didn't take 'another path' down the stream of time. This is more like, well, like somebody threw a bunch of boulders on time, blocking the river altogether, and now we are flowing down completely unexplored paths through the mountain's cliff-side..."

Well, that was worrying. Very worrying indeed. Decades of planning, gone. His future, a future in which he apparently won, gone too. For the first time in years, Toffee's controlled facade cracked ever so slightly, and he groaned in frustration.

\----

"Greetings, princess Star! I am... Ruberiot!" the man introduced himself. He looked like he had been pulled right out of a Ren Faire, dressed in the most stereotypical minstrel costume imaginable. A lute hung in front of him, supported by a strap on his shoulder. Without so much as looking or taking a step inside, he began playing a few cords. "And maaay I just saaaay, thought we have much to dooo, how much of a pleasure it is to meeeet...", the tune broke abruptly as he finally looked up, "...you?"

"So... she is kinda not home right now," Marco answered wearily. His arguments, and Jackie's for that matter, had fallen on deaf ears. Star was determined that no stupid song should be written about her, not today, nor any time soon. Meeting the songstrell in the flesh, Marco could see why his best friend felt that way.

"But, that can't be right! Maybe she did not know I was to be sent here today? You see, the Songday Ceremony is tomorrow, and..." Ruberiot rambled on, visibly anxious.

"Oh, I would say she knows," the boy cut him off.

"Well, kind sir, would you know where I may find princess Star today, then?" Ruberiot asked apprehensively. "Please, I assure you this is urgent."

"No clue," Marco answered honestly and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, if that's all. It was nice meeting you, have a great day!" He made a gesture to close the door and extricate himself from the whole situation as soon as possible.

"Actually, perhaps I could wait for her inside?" the songstrell pressed on, and putting a foot on the door, he saw himself in before Marco could reply.

"Man, I don't know where Star is, or when she is coming back, really! I swear!" Marco protested.

"Well, she does live here, right? So I have a better chance of meeting her on time if I wait here than if I try to search for her in an unknown dimension... oh, I just hope she has not traveled far," Ruberiot bemoaned. That seemed, to Marco, like the right verb, for that peculiar person. "Pardon, but, what did you say your name was?"

"I am Marco, Marco Diaz," he ansewered with a sigh, as he walked back to sit on the couch. "I am Star's roommate and," he paused, unsure, "...and best friend."

"The princess' best friend? What an honor!" Ruberiot exclaimed. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to be so rude before. You must understand, I am quite nervous to finally get to meet her as well, and to perform such an important task as writing her Princess Song!"

Well, yeah, it sort of was an honor, Marco thought to himself. But not for the reasons the songstrell probably thought. It was not an honor because of the fact that Star was a princess, let alone the type of perfect princess described in the sort of song he had heard last night. Rather, it was an honor because of who Star was as a person: boundlessly enthusiastic, generous, adventurous, trouble creating and trouble resolving. Star was the best friend one could ever hope for, and an amazing girlfriend as well. Plenty of times these days, Marco still had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that someone like Star liked him back, an honor indeed.

But even for the sake of Star, dealing with the annoying minstrel was a test to Marco's patience and nerves. Ruberiot spent hours on end playing his lute and singing at him increasingly desperate songs asking about where Star might have gone. If Marco had known the specifics, he would have cracked after the first two or three hours, such was the depth of the torture involved in listening to that man. He could not watch tv, he could not even do homework. He tried distracting the songstrell with conversation, but somehow he always seemed to break into song at the third or fourth response and it was even worse than what he got by ignoring him.

So when the doorbell finally rang again, it was Marco that bolted up to the door like lightning. "Star! So glad you are back!"

"Whoa, Diaz, wrong girlfriend," the blond girl at the door replied chidingly. "Guess now I know who you miss the most."

She was dressed in white. A white padded, seemingly single piece, suit. A fencing suit, actually. She carried a training foil in one hand and her trademark skateboard in the other.

"Jackie... I didn't mean... is just..." Marco stammered. "Wait, why are you wearing a fencing uniform? I thought you stopped taking lessons before 6th grade."

"I know you didn't, Marco," she laughed. "I am just pulling your leg. And, well, I am trying to get back into fencing. I guess the whole giant snake thing got me thinking... you have your sweet karate moves, Star's got magic, I need something more than my board if I am going to keep up with you guys. I don't want to make a habit of being the damsel in distress, even if you make a pretty sweet handsome knight. Mmmm, by the way, how did you know I took fencing lessons back in elementary school, dude?"

"Well... ah, Jackie, you know I paid a lot of attention to you since back then," Marco ran a hand through the back of his hair.

Jackie smiled, moved the sword to one side and pushed forward to plant a deep kiss on Marco's lips. "... Stalker," she jokingly admonished him once more.

Behind them, lute silent for once, Ruberiot stared at the two in quiet surprise. 

\----

"Hey, Janna Banana! So glad to see you!" the princess greeted her with a hug, as she literally landed in front of her, having jumped from a pink talking cloud.

"Yo, Star," Janna replied, briefly returning the hug before offering her fist to be bumped. To her surprise, Star handled the gesture perfectly and bumped fists with her without a hitch. Clearly hanging out with Jackie was rubbing off on the princess. Speaking of which, better to cut to the chase "So, Star, is this by any chance a boys' trouble shopping trip again?"

"What? No! Why would you think that?" Star asked. Janna resisted the urge of saying something sarcastic, but the mewman sounded sincere enough. "Things are going great with Marco. Weird, but mostly weird awesome. No. It is, well, it is this stupid royal tradition... apparently I have to have a song written about how I love puppies and kitty cats, and smiles! Ugh!"

"But, eh, Star, well... don't you? Love puppies and kitty cats, and smiles, I mean?" Janna questioned her, a bit surprised. Star might be a rebel, but she did love all sort of girly things, like puppies and rainbows.

"Well, ok, yeah, I do. But, well, they will make it sound like that's all there is... to... to me. You should have heard my mom's song, there was nothing about the real her in that song, and there will not be anything about the real me in mine!" Star griped. "The people of Mewni will never know me as more than another perfect, flawless, boring, princess!"

"Well, fuck them then!" Janna replied without hesitating.

"Janna! I don't think that's the part of me I want the people of Mewnie to know either..." Star replied, surprised and quite flustered.

What? Oh, right, seemed Star was still not completely used to Earth, apparently. "No, Star, I don't mean literally. I mean, who cares what they think!? If you don't want to do a Song Day, don't do it! Aren't you the future queen? You have the power to do whatever you please, and off with their heads or whatever if they don't agree!"

"If only it were that simple. My mom is forcing me to do this Song Day stuff. I am trying to hide from the whole thing right now. Hopefully, if they can find me, this stuff will eventually blow over," Star explained with a sigh. "And, Janna... I wouldn't be chopping any heads over this, even if I could."

"Well, you take all the fun away from being a witch queen," Janna retorted, trying to distract Star from her bad mood.

"Being queen takes all the fun away from being queen, Janna," Star retorted sourly.

"I doubt that!" Janna insisted. Ok, the law was not fun, but being the law was a completely different matter. "If I were the magical queen of Mewni, I would make it fun! I would use the power to get everything my heart desires. All shall love me and despair!" she quoted, dramatically.

Star laughed. "Whatever you say... Eclipsa."

"Who?"

"Let's just say you would probably like her," Star replied mysteriously.

They walked around the mall some more, and Janna's ever more brazen jokes about how she would abuse Star's power and what she would do to anyone who tried to tell her what to do seemed to slowly help lift up the princess' mood. Star might have a problem with being thought of as a perfect princess, but when compared to Janna's outrageous declarations of what she would do with the crown, and the wand, she had to admit she was a good kid at heart. Then again, even Janna suspected, that in the real situation, she herself would also be less willing to walk the tyrant walk than she was to talk the tyrant talk.

"So, Star, now that we have established how terrible of an idea would be to give me any kind of power, how would you feel if I told you I am going to be learning magic?" Janna suddenly asked. She had been thinking on how to bring up that particular topic the entire morning, and while her segue ended up not being the smoothest, it would have to do for now.

"Uh... Janna, that would be great and all, but... I don't think magic, at least my kind of magic, is something that humans can learn," Star answered hesitantly. "Most mewman's can't, either..."

"Well, Star, I don't think it will be exactly your kind of magic," Janna explained, carefully. She herself had her doubts about whether what she had heard last night was possible. However, given any chance, she chose to believe. "But Tom says he knows a way, and he is going to teach me. Starting late tonight he is going to be tutoring me on doing some magic..."

Star made a face, a show of discomfort quickly morphing into the rictus of contained laugher. Janna knew Star didn't like her talking about Tom, specially since the troublemaker girl never paid heed to the princess' heartfelt warnings in that regard, but this time there seemed to be something else to her reaction. "Suuure you are, Janna... sorry, but are you sure 'tutoring you on doing magic at night' isn't just Tom's way of, you know...?"

"Of getting me alone at night for a quick game of bury the third horn? Of inviting me into a dark deserted area so that he can have his way with me? Of getting me chained and on all fours again to fuck me?" Janna asked Star loudly and unashamedly, and the mewman made an expression of surprise, revulsion and something else, far less innocent. Janna felt a tingle of delight in teasing Star this way. "Frankly, Star, I am kind of hoping it is both that and actual magic."

\----

It was sunset by the time she got back, so hopefully by now that whole annoying business with the songstrell had long resolved itself. Hanging out with Janna had been good for her nerves. Unlike her other friends, and to Star's surprise, the troublemaker girl had encouraged her to ditch her royal duties as much as possible, or at least ignore the responsibilities inherent in them, which was a refreshing point of view to hear. Then again, Janna was also the person who couldn't stop telling her about how great was to date Tom, so Star had to admit the dark haired girl's judgment was extremely suspect. Still, she would rather go live of toads in the Forest of Certain Death than have a ridiculous song made about how she was sooo perfect and flawless and boring.

Star walked the last few blocks on foot, after dismounting Cloudy, which allowed her to see Jackie leaning in through the door, kissing Marco. Star smiled. It had taken her a while to get to that point, but she no longer felt panicked or threatened when she saw the two of them being affectionate with each other and, she had to admit, once she got past that particular reaction, she found the two lovebirds actually looked quite sweet.

"Awwww, you two," she said, coming up from behind Jackie's back, after they were done kissing.

The other girl turned around with a smile. "Hey, Star, how's it going?"

"You know, same old, same old," Star replied, not wanting to talk about either the Song Day or Janna's dating life. "Sweet sword, by the way, the point looks a bit dull, though!" she commented. Honestly, the compliment part was mostly her being polite. The sword was a pretty flimsy thing, and it didn't look like it would do much in a real fight. Maybe she could help Jackie get a better sword later? It seemed to be one of those things that Mewni craftsmen did way better than Earth ones, for some reason.

"Princess Star, you are back!" a voice from inside the house interrupted her planning and brought a frown to her face.

"Ah, the songstrell... well, good-bye," she replied, and turned on the spot. Maybe she would have to be gone until after Song Day had passed as a whole. She could do that.

"Please, princess, I have a job to do, and I can't leave until it's done," Ruberiot scrambled after her.

"And I won't stay, until you are gone." she replied, annoyed.

Soon she was arguing back and forth with the songstrell, her good humor gone. Eventually, Marco, also visibly annoyed, pulled her into the kitchen. Apparently the insufferable man had spent his time throwing song after annoying song at the boy too. Didn't Marco get that was partly why she didn't want that kind of creep writing a song about her? Specially one as fake and barf-inducing as the one her mom had?

"It's ok, Star. Everyone knows you are anything but ordinary," the boy reassured her, patting her hair as he said that.

"Aww, thanks Marco!" she beamed back at him, surprised how much it helped her to hear him say that. To be reassured that she was not another cookie cutter princess in a line of cookie cutter perfect princesses, or, more precisely, that the people she truly cared about in her life didn't see her that way. She couldn't hold herself from hugging Marco and planting a long passionate kiss on his lips.

"He's, uh... he's staring at us, isn't he?" she asked after they pulled apart.

"Yup," Marco answered.

Ruberiot looked at them, then looked at Jackie who was sitting right besides him in the couch, her sword resting in the small table in front of them. The human girl just shrugged like it was no big deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "and, well, what's the worst that could happen?" - Marco Diaz :)


	11. The Forces of Evil, that Lurk in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some plans change while others continue in motion, dark forces move unseen, we observe the craft of song writing, and Tom and Janna make some magic.

## Chapter 11: The Forces of Evil, that Lurk in the Night

> **Continuity stardate:** Chapters 10 to 12 take place during the span of SvtFoE episode _"Face the Music"_ (S02E21), but the timeline has diverged enough that some important scenes will play out very differently from canon. Previous episodes are in continuity for this fic, episodes after S02E21, generally speaking, are not. That said, **Chapters from 11 onwards can contain indirect Battle For Mewni spoilers**.

Janna sat immobile in the darkness, eyes closed. She could hear the rustling of the leaves and the beating of her own heart. She could feel the hard cold barren ground under her buttocks and crossed legs, even through the black fabric of her tights. She could remember the position of the gravestones around her, the markings for the tombs beneath. Or maybe, just maybe, she could sense them.

It was not her first, not even her second time attempting to cast a spell in the Echo Creek cemetery. But it was her second time to do so with help, and unlike the clown séance with Star, this time her instructor seemed more experienced in the kind of arts that she sought out, the kind that could be taught.

"Do not open your eyes," Tom instructed as he grabbed her hands and positioned them in front of her, making her cup the air within her palms and placing her two thumbs touching each other above the form. "I want you to picture all of the sources of energy close around you: me, yourself, the trees, the grass, the worms in the Earth, the bodies interred here, the maggots inside those bodies. You might also be able to feel the animals of the forest or the people back in town, but ignore them from now. Draw energy from those close to you. You should probably try to ignore my energy too, at first, since the forces in your own dimension should be easier to control. Got it? Can you feel it all? Once you can, try to form the flame."

Janna felt the things Tom described. It had taken her five or six hours just to get to this point, but she could indeed sense the living energies around her. She felt the slow pulsing power flowing up the trunk of a nearby tree. She also felt the background magical radiation of the dry grass around them. Although insignificant individually, each blade of mostly dead grass added its own power to a surprisingly large and powerful whole.

The burrowing worms and the human corpses below were much less comforting to her senses than the plant life was. In the case of the worms, as in that of the maggots, the main problem was the speed at which their energies moved through their diminutive bodies, brisk and electrified, tiny sparks of restless animus. The force in the corpses, in contrast, was stagnant and deep, a water well which bottom she could not see even as her mind skimmed the surface. Touching the energies of the dead felt instinctively wrong to her mind, in a way that had no analogy to any other sensation of which she knew. Janna did not believe in any one single god, and her own faith was, let's say, complex, as to the subject of cosmic transgression. Nonetheless, there was only one word that truly fit the feeling, regardless of rationalizations: sacrilegious.

She could sense Tom too, like a huge eclipsing dark shadow in the corner of her perception. Yet her mind refused to focus on him directly, or to feel out any details about his unearthly energies. Tom was the most powerful source of magic for miles around, and yet her own senses refused to let her draw from that vast pool. The demon prince had explained that it was to be expected, that it was a good thing, it meant Janna's own instincts were shielding her from doing something that could hurt her.

Minutes passed by, and nothing changed. She could feel the energy in the tree, in the grass, in the corpses and the maggots, but she could not do anything with those forces. She focused on the task at hand, her first spell: a simple candle flame floating inside the palm of her hands. Nothing happened. No flame and no magic. It was no use, she could touch the energies around, but it was like grasping at currents of water with a fishing net, the power simply slid out of her grasp at every attempt.

Janna felt stupid, and more so with each passing second. Perhaps she had only imagined that she could sense the magic around her. Perhaps there was nothing more here than a foolish girl sitting in a graveyard with her eyes closed, playing make believe for most of the night. Could it be that Tom was playing a prank on her? Was he laughing at her as he made her sit for hours and imagine that she felt sparks inside of worms?

She felt her anger break her concentration. She could no longer even feel the damn tree, let alone all the things in the ground below. She grunted annoyed and tried once again. She pulled forth the power, hastily, desperately. She grasped out at any source of energy she could still sense and drew it to her hands with all the willpower she could muster. She felt a hot painful sensation in her left palm, a fountain of tiny sparks sprouted briefly from her flesh, vanishing a second later. "Ouch!" she cried, opening her eyes in surprise.

Tom looked at her, frowning. "Mmmhm, let me see," he examined her palm. "Here it is burned," he said, carelessly pressing a finger against the damaged skin, causing Janna to wince, "and the rest of your hands are cold as a dead woman's. That's not good, at all. We can't continue today."

"But..." Janna protested.

"No buts!" Tom replied with haste and annoyance that admitted no argument. "Janna, you just tried to draw energy from your own core self. You should never ever be doing that. If you had used your own life force to light the entire flame, you could have easily passed out, or worse. The whole point of the exercise is to draw magic from the outside, then guide it to do what you want, not force through with your own limited reserves! I told you, right at the beginning, it is extremely foolish for you to cast magic that way!"

"Isn't that how you do it, though?! Or how Star does it?!" Janna replied, matching the demon's annoyance with her own. She was frustrated and tired of all this fruitless trying, and even more pissed off at the fact that they were going to stop now, after the first undeniable sign of progress. Even if the only thing she had been able to cast was the 'Burning (My Own) Hands' spell.

"Yes, and no," Tom replied, pressing three fingers hard against his forehead. He was probably counting again, trying to regain his calm. Janna had learned to spot some of the demon's anger management techniques. "I can call enough personal power to summon flames, among other things. It is just part of my nature as a demon, Janna. But there are plenty spells where I need to draw forces from... well, from elsewhere. Star channels most of her magic through her wand, and even I don't know from where that thing, or her, really, draws power. In general, all spellcasting is some combination of your own magic and that which you can draw from the environment and, like I said, you don't have a lot of the former, so you should master pulling from the later as much as possible..." he explained once more, speaking slowly as if to a child, making visible effort to keep his tone level.

"And," Janna asked, "even if I don't have much magic of my own, if I do learn to draw magic from trees and corpses and worms, will I be able to cast spells like you... and Star?"

"No," Tom responded bluntly. "Janna, how much magic you can control also depends on how much magic you naturally have and what sources you can reasonably access. You could spend your entire life practicing this sort of thing and you will never be able to call forth one tenth of the power Star could summon the second she got her magic wand. I never said you could. You are a regular human and she, well, she is something quite rare and quite extraordinary in this universe... I mean, Mewni royal magic is incredibly powerful, in general, and so is Star in particular. She is truly an amazing individual, so is not really a fair point of comparison for a normal human girl..."

"So, no matter what I do, I won't ever be a tenth of what Star is then, Tom?" Janna asked, and somehow she knew the conversation was not about spellcasting anymore. It was way too childish of her, and she knew that as she spoke the words. But, the more time she spent with Tom, the more she resented the knowledge that the demon prince loved Star, and thought of her just a temporary distraction while the princess was otherwise occupied. She could not fault Star, of course. Neither for her magic, nor for her effect on the demon boy. She could also not really fault Tom, at least not if she was trying to be fair. Being a distraction from Star was the deal she had originally offered him, so it was not reasonable to expect more now. But what had sounded like a great deal when she was only sort of attracted to the idea of Tom, somehow did not seem enough now that she was starting to fall for him, and for all the wrong reasons.

Tom looked away from her. Then, as if he had not understood, he spoke, "Well, the world isn't fair. But confirmation that you can learn to cast magic at all was news to you last night. Isn't it good news to know it is at least possible? Perhaps you should focus on that for now?" He seemed throughly irritated. Janna only felt even more angry at him in return. He was obviously missing, or avoiding, the point.

\----

"Argh! Wack! Wack!" came a series of grunts and squawking noises from far beyond the boundaries of the dark sea. Toffee found the racket most annoying, but he endured it, as always. He was nothing if not patient. He could see through Ludo's eyes, for as long as the Avarius child held the remains of his own arm and the half-star crystal. He could watch the... lesser... monster using the wand to stir the awful broth he had prepared for himself, and to bludgeon a giant bug. One half of the most powerful instrument in all of Mewni, and the foolish bird-brain was using it to cook dinner and smash beetles! No matter, Ludo could not harm the wand, not even if he tried.

"She is here, you know?" Glossaryck spoke. "She just saw the wand."

A dark smile formed within the oily black liquid as Toffee dared manifest his head and peek further towards the outside world, through Ludo's eyes. Right now, he was mostly just a toothy lizard grin plastered on the crest of a slow rolling wave of corrupted magical essence, black as tar. In all directions, the sea of tainted magic flowed into a boundless expanse, the few remaining large icebergs of golden pure light quickly melting into the darkness. Atop it, the little blue man floated, while the monster lay below, merged with the malignant substance.

"Moon is here?" Toffee confirmed, spitting out the name with slow deliberate venom. Moon the Undaunted, who had scattered his armies and robbed him of his finger. Little did she know that she herself had shown him the way to defeat her, and her entire cursed family. "If she is here, then the timelines can't have diverged that much yet. Perhaps history shall carry on as intended after all."

"I'd be careful with what you wish for," Glossaryck commented with a shrug. "But no, like I said, that future is long past."

"Is it?" The lizard retorted, genuinely surprised. "The way I see it, we are almost back on schedule. Unless, I am missing something?"

Toffee had retreated into the depths of the wand to stop the outflow of magic, and so far it seemed to be working. While he remained hidden from the outside world, pulling and corrupting Star's magic, and the rest of the power flowing through Mewni, he could feel himself winning the cosmic tug-of-war against whomever or whatever else was trying to redirect the magical power. It was only a matter of keeping his concentration here, rather than letting himself be distracted by talking to his unwitting servant or by his new found chances at corporealness.

"Mmmm, you know, Toffee, for someone who is literally submerged in magic, you seem to be only looking at the surface of things," the magical being explained calmly. A look of resignation in his diamond eyes.

"The surface? I don't stay at the surface of anything, little man," the flowing lizard face spoke as it disappeared into the sea. Then the voice came from nowhere and from everywhere at once. "I can go as deep as I want, and I assure you, the magic is all here, and is all corrupted, right down to the bottom!"

"Yes," Glossaryck conceded. "Yes it is."

It was only after hearing that, that Toffee noted the bright emerald solid core at the bottom of his dark well of magic. A sickly glowing thing of unearthly beauty and incredible malevolence. The magic was there, and it was corrupted, but it was no longer his corruption, or his magic.

\----

The silence had grown thick between them. They stared at each other, glaring daggers of annoyance and frustration. He felt the anger rising inside, embers burning within his chest and gut. How could she be so damn unreasonable!

"Janna, damn it, I am trying to do you a favor here," he finally spat. "I don't need an attitude on top of it!"

"Doing me a favor?" Janna rolled her eyes. "You mean by teaching me magic? Or by going out with me?"

Tom contained the urge of yelling 'both' at her. He noticed that he wanted to hurt her, to let out his frustration on the troublemaker girl. He took a deep breath. What exactly was he frustrated about? What in particular was riling his temper, other than the blazing rage that always burned in him, just below the surface? Brian had taught him that sometimes just knowing what made him angry, in each particular occasion, could help him calm down. 

"Of course I meant teaching you magic! I don't need to do it, it will be hard for you to learn and I don't have the patience to be a good teacher, Janna!" he retorted. And is not like she had the patience to be a good student either, he thought, but bit his tongue on that one.

That was it, though. He was frustrated because they had been practicing for hours and Janna had made no progress. He saw her own frustration and felt frustrated himself, frustrated at not being able to teach her better or have her make progress faster. He had been so eager to get Janna working some basic magic, to fulfill that desire of her, and also, if he had to be fully honest, to reap the praise and admiration she would bestow on him for helping her with that. But now she was angry at him, despite all his efforts, rather than grateful for them, and it wounded him.

"It will be hard for me to learn," she repeated, coldly. "Unlike Star, you mean?"

Oh, for fuck sake, that was it! Tom stopped even trying to calm himself. If the dark haired girl wanted them to fight, then they would fight. "I wouldn't have anything to teach Star about magic! Star was meant to do magic, from the moment she was born. You... weren't!"

"So, you would still rather be dating Star, then. Is that right?" Janna asked, a threatening undertone to her voice concealed a faint touch of doubt. She glared at him, and he glared back.

"Well, yes! But magic has nothing to do with it," he shot back, without hesitation. That is, until he caught the hurt look in the human girl's eyes. It was brief, replaced in an instant by an even harsher scowl. But for a second, only for a second, it looked as if Janna was about to break down crying. Tom felt guilty about his admission. It was no lie, however, and she had been the one to push him into saying it, even when she should have known better. It is not that he didn't like the human, but Star was precious to him, in a way that she couldn't possibly understand.

"To bad she prefers half of Marco to all of you, then," Janna spit back. It was a low blow. Painful and bitting to his ego and to his heart. She kept going, "Hell, she has spent the last two weeks telling me what a terrible idea hanging out with you is, and I am starting to see her point!"

Tom had no response to that. He felt his heart sink into his chest. He felt furious, and humiliated, but mostly, he felt sad and heartbroken. The human girl's words rang true. Star did not want him anymore, and maybe now Janna didn't either. He felt his body react to the pain and the sadness, turning it all into the emotion that was the most familiar to him: rage. His clawed fists clenched, flames danced around his knuckles. He was seeing red, literally.

"Then again, who could blame her? I mean, let's be honest, Tom, you got more issues than a weekly magazine!" the girl continued to shout viciously at him. At the same time, her face was turning red, a thin tear felt from her left eye.

"I have issues, Janna? I have issues?!" Tom growled. He felt the fire welling up inside his core. Something ancient and instinctual in him bade him to attack, to harm, to go for the kill. "You knew I liked Star, even before we met! You made this whole elaborate plan to get together with me. A plan that involved, I remind you, having me sleep with Star! A plan that you told me was going to get me Star. You started this whole 'relationship', if you can call it that, under false pretenses, and now you have the fucking nerve to spring this crap on me when I am doing my damn best to help you achieve your stupid wish of learning magic... Janna, maybe you are right and I do have issues, but you are even more messed up than I am!"

She stared at him, silently. Her angry glare softening and avoiding his own. She looked down. When she finally spoke, it was in a very quiet, distant, voice. "Yeah, well, Tom, of course I know that. I know I manipulated you, and I manipulated Star too. I know I am being selfish, and I know I have no right to ask you for more than you agreed to when we first spoke." She paused and took a deep trembling breath. "But Tom, that is the problem, you are already giving me more than what you agreed to originally. You helped me fix my home after I stole from you, and that same night, I mean, after... well... you know, it felt so right and comfortable, at least to me. And now you are taking your entire night to try and teach me to cast spells, even if I am not the best person to learn and you are not the best person to teach either. You are already putting more effort into this than what you agreed to the night of the concert. The thing is, Tom, I have feelings for you, and all of this stuff we are doing is not helping me keep those feelings in check. So at which point do I get to ask if you also have any feelings for me? If I am something more than a ploy to make your ex jealous, or a replacement goldfish for Star?"

Tom felt his anger abate, slightly, as he heard the girl explain herself.

"Janna, you are not a replacement for Star, and I don't think you could be," the demon prince replied calmly. "But that does not mean I don't have feelings for you. That night, in your house, after the whole thing with Midra'Apep and, well, what we did together in what was left of the house," he smirked a single fanged smirk, "I don't know how to explain it, but I have never felt that relaxed or that calm. There is a lot that is wrong with me, you are right on that. But, that night, I felt like, like I had let it out of me for a while, like opening a valve and venting out all the fire and all the darkness in me, without really harming anyone or doing anything I would hate myself for doing. At least, I thought I didn't harm you back then. Maybe I was wrong..."

"No," Janna replied, still looking down. "You didn't harm me. I enjoyed that night, Tom. I enjoy you using me, and yelling at me, and being mean. Is you being kind to me that I have trouble handling right now." She seemed to stop to think for a few moments. Then, smiling weakly, she added, "Wow, aren't we both a mess?"

"Heh. Yeah," Tom smiled at her, walked toward her and lifted her face up, carefully cleaning the tears from it with the back of his clawed hand. "We are both pretty fucked up."

\----

"Whoa. So you're, like, a totally tortured artist. Cool!" Star felt she had seriously misjudged the songstrel after all. She had been regretting not giving him a chance ever since he made his wish of writing a genuine song about a real princess known, back when she had just shouted him out of her bedroom. Now that she saw him, burning through paper, still giving it his best effort to end up with something other than a cheesy boring perfect princess song, she regretted it even more.

"What do you want?!" He glowered at her, and the future queen felt pretty damn small, if only for a second. She had thought of him the whole day as one more songstrel in a long line of awful interchangeable songstrels. Which, whoa, perspective, was exactly what the people who saw her just as another perfect little princess did to her! Well, as if she didn't feel bad enough already.

"You, uh, you forgot your stupid notebook," was all she could think of replying. Incredibly lame, she had to admit. She hadn't planned what exactly she would tell him when she opened the portal and bolted after him, and it did not help that this was the first time she was even considering Ruby as a person, rather than as a symbol of his damned profession. Now that she was truly seeing him for him, he seemed like a pretty interesting artsy guy. Looked kinda cute too. Like, not Marco-cute, maybe not even Oskar-cute, but cute. Still, priorities, Star. "Ruberiot, do you really hate Princess Songs as much as I do?"

"I do, Princess. I thought I could change them. I know they can be better. I can do better." He seemed hopeful for a second, before suddenly becoming crestfallen again. "But, the show is tomorrow, and I have nothing!"

"Ruberiot, nothing is that bad when you have a magic wand!" Star smiled at him. "Like, I can literally freeze time with this thing! Although, well, on second thought, maybe we better just like extend it, or duplicate you, or something less risky, ok? Messing with time can get kinda weird..." she rambled for a second there before she caught herself. "Actually, first, you said you wanted to know the real me, right? So, what do you want to know?"

"Ah, sure, princess, well, lots of things, but let's start simple: any unique hobbies?" he asked, sounding uncertain. Like he didn't yet buy Star's sudden change in attitude towards his own appointed task.

"Sure! I fight monsters! And tame wild unicorns!" Star replied, proudly.

"Whoa, that's good, that's really good. Bold. New. Unexpected. How about..." He put his fingers to the keys and began improvising a tune as he sang, "And under the glimmer of bright shining pearls, lies hidden a brave and adventurous girl!"

"Uh, we are going to have to do something to actualize your beats, Ruby," Star groaned at the tune. "But... I do like the lyrics."

"Actualize? Oh, right, like, music from other dimensions. Bold, super bold, I like it. Say no more!" Ruberiot exclaimed. Then started musing, almost to himself, "I am going to need instruments, and stage work, then, maybe... animatronics? But, princess, we are getting side tracked. Themes first, notes second, lyrics third. So, what are you most proud of, Princess Star, of all you have done thus far?"

"Uh," Star looked sideways at her wand. "Oooh, I know." She smiled a broad, dangerous, smile, and aimed at a wall. "Nar-whal BLAST!"

A full horde of tiny horned whales emerged from her wand and blew up a hole in the tower's brickwork. The outside wind sucked out the troves of draft paper. Bits of wall fell all over the place, one of them hit the piano, breaking all the keys in the left side.

"Oh, oh, sorry, sorry, I'll fix that in one sec. But, isn't that pretty neat, though?" the mewman girl asked, running a hand down the back of her own head.

"That's, that's... inspiring!" Ruberiot shouted excitedly. "Maybe something like, I dunno: 'She is casting magic like a born spellcaster, crashing walls like a natural disaster!' No, not walls, mmmhmm... well, we will work on that. But, the thing is, princess, if the song is going to be real, about the real you, it does also need to include more than your strengths, it needs to include your flaws, your struggles, your failures! Princess, I am sorry to have to ask, but art demands it! What would you say is your greatest regret?"

Star blinked. Her biggest regret? Well, if you had asked her a month ago it would have probably been, dunno, not asking Marco before Jackie did? No, actually, it would have been losing Glossaryck and her book of spells. That was the one time she felt she had failed at something important, it had cost her a precious family heirloom and, more importantly, her friend. Traitor or not.

Then again, as the princess went over the events of the last few weeks, she realized that was no longer her biggest regret. There was another, more hurtful, more personal, more intimate. A mistake she brought upon herself not by failing to do something, but by doing something she would, in retrospect, not have done. She remembered the cold stone floor, the sound of water running, the splinters, the heat. She remembered laying under Tom, imagining she was with Marco. She remembered how cold and insufficient it had felt, in her heart of hearts, if not on her flesh and blood. She remembered Tom's furious and hurt look, as she yearned and cried out for Marco instead. She had hurt Tom that night, and hurt herself, and even though things turned out alright, that was one episode of her life she could have done without.

"Well, Ruberiot, it is a long story, and is personal, I don't want to put it in a song that the entire kingdom will hear..." she fretted. Sure, she wanted her subjects to know the real her, but did they really need to know that?

"Princess, please, tell me, we can make sure to use, you know, metaphor and analogy. True art is saying something truthful, not necessarily something literal. But, well, I am going to need to know, otherwise, how can I make something real?" Ruberiot pleaded. 

Star sighed. Well, she could probably trust Ruberiot's judgment on this. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and he really did get her. Besides, it was what she wanted: a song about a real princess, with all her gifts and flaws. As long as it was only alluded to indirectly. "Ok, Ruby, I guess I have to tell you about my ex..." 

\----

"So, what you are saying is..." Tom begun asking, slowly. He paused, unsure of how to continue paraphrasing her offer. Janna's lip curved into a smug smile, feeling surprisingly satisfied at causing the demon so much hesitation. She loved teasing him with the brazenness of her words, as much as she enjoyed being teased by the boldness of his actions.

"I am saying that I want more of what we did that time in my house, only this time it won't be 'punishment'. It won't need to be this controlled, carefully dosed out sort of performance you put for my benefit. Not saying that I don't want that in the future, far from it. But, tonight, it will simply be you venting, Tom, letting the anger out, at me, at Star, at whatever you want," the human girl reiterated. "How does that sound?"

She let her arms fall to her sides, standing in front of the demon prince, presenting him a purposefully exposed and vulnerable position, tilting her head ever so slightly, literally sticking out her neck to him, like prey tempting predator. She gave him her best inviting sexy smile, and she did not have to act to show him the excitement in her eyes. Janna wanted Tom to do things to her, the kind of things that came from the darkness and fire he said lived within himself. People thought of the demon as having a short fuse and being quick to let his anger out. But, if she was right, then Tom was actually a master of self-control, bottling up things inside of him that humans, or mewmans for that matter, simply did not have to deal with, just because of what he was.

"Sounds..." Tom shifted around uncomfortably, "... intriguing. I mean, it is a great offer and all, but, Janna, are you doing this to get me to like you instead of Star? If so, I am flattered, but you don't need to..."

It wasn't like that! Well, maybe it was partly like that. But that wasn't her main reason. "Mostly, I am asking because I want to see. I want to see you let lose, scratch that, I want to feel you let lose, for my benefit as well as yours. Come on, Tom, wouldn't it feel good to let go, for once?"

"Yes, oh yes, you have no idea how tempting that is, Janna," Tom replied, in a carefully subdued tone, which barely restrained the arousal in his voice. He shook his head. "But, what if I go overboard? No offense, but you are more fragile than... Anyways, I really don't want to end up causing you actual harm."

"Then don't, Tom," Janna shrugged. "I mean, I am not asking you to throw fireballs at me, or crush my bones to dust, or anything like that. Just, be mean the way you want to be mean, rather than the way you think I want you to be mean to me, just this once. If I can't handle it, or think you are close to hurting me in any permanent way, I'll yell, I don't know... avocado!"

"Avocado?" Tom raised an eyebrow, or two.

"Yeah, avocado!" Janna chuckled. "It is called a safe-word, Tom. If I beg for mercy or plead with you, from this point on, then I will be doing it to turn you on," the girl winked and the demon blushed, slightly. "If I say avocado, though, then I do mean for you to stop, right then and there. As long as I don't say that, you will know I am having a good time. Does that work?"

Janna had been doing some reading online, ever since their previous time together. Having a way to stop their games made sense, it made them safer to play, and Tom seemed like a decent enough, well, demon, that he would acknowledge the word if and when she needed to use it, even if he was still having a good time. At least, that's what Janna hoped. Still, in the back of her mind, a voice was telling her that she was doing something incredibly dangerous, asking Tom to release control of his anger on her, asking him to loosen control on purpose. That voice, annoyingly enough, sounded to the human girl like a certain Star Butterfly.

"Ok, we can do that, if you are sure that's what you want?" Tom answered hesitantly. When Janna nodded in agreement, his face quickly changed. He smirked a smug and knowing smirk, suddenly switching into the living image of self-assuredness. He walked towards her and slowly ran a clawed finger through her jaw. "So now I can make you pay for all that crap you said before, and for the time wasted on useless magic lessons..."

Hearing those words, Janna simply laughed in his face. The demon prince looked back with a confused stare. "Didn't I say not to do what you think I want you to do? Come on, Tom, I may not know you as well as Star does, but I do know when you are faking it."

She considered for a while on what the best course of action would be. Then, a thought occurred to her, a dangerous and nasty thought. She looked up at Tom, closed her mouth, gathered saliva with one quick take and, without warning, spat on his face. Tom's eyes glowed red, fire surged around him, and in one rapid movement he slapped her face with the back of his hand. It felt deliciously raw and brutal. So intense. So real. "Yeah, that's what I am talking about, Tommy boy!"

"What?!" Tom shouted. "You can't be serious... you want me to just hit you?"

"Not 'just' hit me, Tom, but it is a start," Janna quipped, as she slowly lifted her banged head back up.

"Oh, fine, then see how you like this, you crazy bitch," he suddenly smiled, slowly getting into the spirit of things. He raised his hand again, and slapped her opposite cheek. Her skin burned, both from the force of the impact and from the intense heat pooled into his still partly scorching palm.

"Aww, Tom, such a charmer, you are going to make a girl blush," Janna retorted once her teeth stopped shaking and her jaw felt like moving again. She wondered how long she would be able to keep goading him on.

Tom jumped towards her, moving forward through the air as if propelled by some unseen force. Closing his firm iron hands around both her wrists, he pinned her against the tree. Now she really felt the tree for sure, no magic-sense required: she felt every inch of hard rough bark against her thin summer clothing. The fabric of her shirt and tights tangled against the rind's groves and protrusions. "Oh, Janna, I am going to do a lot more to you than make you blush."

"Hey, I thought we were doing what you wanted, not what I want?" the human girl replied, only half seriously.

"Oh, don't worry, we are!" Tom's eyes went red again as he grabbed a fistful of her dark hair, and pulled down, forcing the troublemaker on her knees. With his other hand, he undid the front of his pants and pulled his dick out through the open buttons of his black boxer-shorts. "I trust that you get the idea?"

Janna smiled and leaned forward, running her tongue along the length of the demon's rapidly hardening cock. "Tom, tell me, how you feel about Star?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer, he took the demon's twitching member into her mouth and began moving up and down on it.

"What? About Star? Are you asking now? Why?" Tom retorted surprised. "Fine. I love Star, I admire her inner strength and her energy, and the fact that she does what she wants. But also, these days I mostly feel frustrated with her, frustrated that she keeps turning her back on me, ignoring what we had... ugh, are you really going to have me talking about Star while you do that? Right now, fuck Star!"

That was what the girl wanted to hear, and she picked up the pace and pursed her lips tighter in encouragement. She tried to take him deeper, like last time, back at her place. She found she could not do so without help, her mind was willing, but her throat muscles were utterly uncooperative in opening up. Instead, she tried running her hand around the demon's buttocks and legs. Eventually settling on massaging his unnaturally warm balls through his underwear.

"Fuck Star! Fuck Marco! Fuck your questions! And. Fuck. You!" Tom shouted. He reached down and pulled at Janna's t-shirt, ripping it open with ease. She felt the cold night air against her breasts immediately, followed by the painfully hot touch of the demon's hands and claws. He began pulling and twisting her nipples, while at the same time pushing against her face with his hips, quite literally fucking her mouth. She felt it slide easily down her throat now, after his hands made her scream from the pain and he began thrusting hard through her lips. It was a painful, almost suffocating sensation, yet also exhilarating. She felt used. She felt sore. She felt like she was about to puke. She felt like she was about to form a puddle through her pants just from how wet this was making her.

Then, as sudden as it begun, it stopped. Tom pulled back. Janna opened her mouth to protest, to beg, to demand that he returned to banging her face. A slap on her left cheek shut her up before she could even say a word. 

"On your feet!" Tom shouted. Janna hesitated and she immediately felt him brutally pull her up by her hair. A clawed hand reached down and carelessly ripped a hole in her tights, right over her melting crotch. The demon prince slammed into her without so much as a warning, and Janna was surprised to discover that she was so aroused that it glided in effortlessly, despite Tom's impatient forcefulness.

Tom fucked her against the tree, her back scratching up and down the rough bark. He held her up by the hair with one of his hands, while the other dug claw marks into the side of the trunk. She rested her own arms on Tom's shoulders, and parted her legs as much as she could without falling. Tom's motions were fierce but regular, as he quickly picked up pace in his thrusting. She felt him hitting all the right spots inside of her, delving deeper, perhaps, than he had ever before. But what really did it for her were his almost animalistic grunts and his forceful hunger. The demon prince seemed and sounded feral, savage. He was out of his mind and it drove her out of hers.

Janna closed her eyes. The whole world dissolved into sensations too intense to describe in words. The racking bark behind her, the burning hot pulsating rod going in and out of her, her own flesh opening and closing around it, the pain from her hair being violently pulled up, the pleasure building inside her. But most of all, she felt Tom. He was wordless now, breath irregular, grunting through his gritted fangs, pupil-less red eyes glaring at her. He seemed lost in a trance of anger and pleasure. And she was in a trance of her own.

Suddenly she realized she could truly feel Tom. She did not mean just Tom's cock inside her, or his skin against hers, but the fire deep within his being as well. What had been an enormous ghostly shadow in the corner of her eye before, was now clear to her, down to its finest contours. She pulled at the fire inside her lover with hungry abandon. Letting go of Tom's shoulders, she let both arms fall against her sides. In front of each of her hands, a sphere of purple flame the size of a fist sprouted instantly out of thin air. Tom grunted and tensed, and as he exploded inside her, emptying himself into her, the two fireballs flew forward from her palms. They hit two separate tombstones, turning them instantly into dust, leaving the area around black with soot as they seared the grass and blew up clouds of dust and ash with a thunderous roar.

Tom blinked, surprised, as his eyes returned to normal as his orgasmic bliss faded. He looked back at the damage, dumbfounded, "Shit, Janna! I think you just drew some major magic from me!"

"Yeah... and also some fireballs, I think," Janna said with a chuckle, and let herself slowly fall to the floor besides the tree. Tom groaned.

\----

The mountain surrounding the ancient temple was unnaturally quiet, without the call of a single bird or the buzzing of a single bug. Toffee stood there, in Ludo's stolen body, floating in mid air, fully in control, wand at the ready. He had felt it approach, whatever it was. One of the advantages of being connected to the entire stream of corrupted magic was that he could sense when so much of it was nearby in the outside world. He was sure Glossaryck could sense it too, although he did not know how exactly the diminutive magic being did it.

Over the last few hours, the immortal monster had seen his dark ocean reduced to a shallow pool over the frozen emerald crystal permafrost, spikes of virdisent glass piercing out of the oily black 'water'. Whatever was the force that opposed him, it had done in a day what had took months for him to pull off. Toffee was angry, but more than anything, he was determined. Now it came for him, it sought him out, but he would fight it and he would win. He was the one who made the plans. He was in control. This... this meddler, would pay!

A diffuse fluttering sound, as if millions of gossamer wings flapping in the air, reverberated softly around them. Sparks of green light shone all around in the night sky, like ghostly fireflies. Quickly they all began converging in front of the monster, slowly assembling into a tall slender humanoid shape of bright green light. Soon it became clear that the resplendent figure was female, but none of its features could be seen through the brightness. In place of a face, a beautifully ornate but expressionless silver mask shimmered into existence. It had blank emotionless holes for eyes, a solid metal lip permanently curved into a slight smirk. The various reliefs on the false face were rendered unreadable by the intense backlight.

"This, you see, well, this, is... quite bad," Glossaryck deadpanned, looking up at the strange apparition.

"Oh, it is," Toffee agreed. "For her."

Guiding Ludo's hand, he aimed the wand straight against the intruder, hitting it squarely in the masked face with a formidable green and black blast of corrupted magic. A nasty smile crossed the lizard face as he anticipated his victory. It quickly vanished. As soon as the spell connected, he felt a jolt of electricity go up through his body, his real body in the handle and the inside of the wand. An instant later, he was half-deafened by a booming metallic sound, like the tolling of a humongous bell. As he reeled back in pain and the magic beam faded away, the womanly figure calmly advanced towards him, gracefully gliding through the air.

"What, what are you...?" Toffee asked in surprise, pain and terror.

"I am will, unbending," the form of light replied.

It raised a hand and a beam of unearthly green flame sprung forth from it, it hit Toffee, and the wand, and the book of spells. The lizard in bird clothing fell backwards, towards the temple, charred and consumed. His back hit a huge pillar of stone, which cracked under the magical energies still surrounding his body and fell upon him, entombing Toffee beneath its huge weight. The crystal in the wand turned black as void and disintegrated into a million pieces. Meanwhile, the book slowly burned to ashes.

"Well, what do you know?" Glossaryck pondered, in calm resignation, as he ignited too, burning up as one with the book's pages. "The more things change, the more they stay the same..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, not much was changed in the Toffee scenes from the outline after I saw Battle for Mewni.
> 
> * His first scene in this chapter was always going to be inside the wand. At the time I imagined it as an empty black void of some sort. But now that the show has given us the "ocean of goop" visual, it just felt right to use that instead.
> 
> * He and old Glossy were going to die at the end of this Chapter either way. Of course, the details of their deaths were changed last minute for added irony. An important difference, besides it all happening much earlier in the timeline, is that Ludo has now died in the fic, while he lives in the show.
> 
> Also, yes, I know, I know: Star's and Marco's magic link gets stronger whenever any of the two are fucking, and Janna literally gains magical powers from sex. What can I say, that's how this world works now. It is "My Little Porno, Sex Equals Magic". Promise the story will have stakes that don't get solved with a bang, though. ;)
> 
> Speaking of which...
> 
>  **Next, in "I Summon the All-seeing Eye"** : _And now, Mewni's newest court composer, the songstrel, Ruberiot..._


	12. When this Shooting Star Ignites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we observe yet more things our protagonists are unaware of, Marco spends $650, Jackie deals with a case of crown-envy and Star's secrets are revealed in song form.

## Chapter 12: When this Shooting Star Ignites

> **Continuity stardate:** Chapters 10 to 12 take place during the span of SvtFoE episode _"Face the Music"_ (S02E21), but the timeline has diverged enough that some important scenes will play out very differently from canon. Previous episodes are in continuity for this fic, episodes after S02E21, generally speaking, are not. That said, **Chapters from 11 onwards can contain indirect Battle For Mewni spoilers**.

"Are you sure you know where we are going?"

"Shhhh!!" she shushed the other princess, not bothering to give her question the obvious response. In fact, her own admonition was far louder than the tiny pixie's voice. Fortunately for both of them, however, this particular hallway seemed rather deserted. And, well, so what if she was a bit less than discreet? After all, it was not like her to sneak around like this. Oh, who was she kidding? It was totally like her to sneak around! She was baaad like that! But that didn't mean she had to do it quiet-like, though, not really. Not her style. Besides, no one had actually bothered being in this part of the manor in a very long time, not since the old owner was, ahem, forced to tend her resignation. Little did they suspect, back then, all the ways in which the new management would turn out to be even worse. But hey, at least she knew just the person to help them out of that particular bind. The problem was getting the message out to her.

They found the door easily enough. She saw it first, of course, and pointed it out with her horn. It was the biggest, most ornate and, at the same time, the most depressingly sober and least inspired door in the entire floor. It took deliberate effort to have a large door in a hallway of many identical doors, and yet still have it stand out as the most unimaginative of the lot. If you asked her, she wouldn't be able to tell how it was exactly that the door achieved such paradoxical effect, but it did; the old hag had managed it somehow.

Her pixie friend pulled a pin out of her belt, as if she were unsheathing a rapier, and proceeded to quickly apply herself to picking the tumblers on the lock with it. The lock lasted only a few seconds in her dexterous hands, and they soon both walked, or floated, as the case might be, into the former bedchamber. The room was old and dusty, and it showed no signs of anyone having lived there in months, yet they both still felt nervous to go inside. They both had bad memories of when this room was inhabited, back when the school was still a school, or well, more like a jail, really. They moved quickly, despite the foreboding feeling, opening drawers, unlocking chests, taking perverse pleasure in untidying the damned room. Until she finally found what they needed.

"Ohhh scoreee, Giiirl! Look what I just found!!" she shouted, not caring in the least if anyone heard. Even if someone did hear, they would be far too late to stop her now. Inside the cabinet was a small basket, and inside the basket a dozen or so pairs of scissors. But not just any scissors, those were all dimensional scissors, confiscated to all of the former students of Saint Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses, by old hag miss Heinous herself. Those were their ticket out of there! "Now we can go fetch my home girl... and when we do, I swear White won't know what hit her!" 

As she picked up a pair of scissors with her tongue, Ponyhead let out a loud whine, which soon morphed into a maniacal laugh. Thunder and lightning outside, an usual feature of St. O's, echoed her cackle.

\----

"Get your exclusive Star Butterfly merch here!" a vendor shouted as their carriage passed by its cart. Jackie looked out of the window, aware that she was probably gawking around like an inexperienced tourist. She couldn't help it. Try as she might to keep her usual cool, there was nothing usual about her first visit to Mewnie. The entire place looked like it came from a cross between her history books, a fairy tale animated picture, and literal Disneyland. Especially what with all the food stands and glowing Star Butterfly branded products.

"Yo, Manfred, could you please get us some of that sweet swag?" Marco asked, leaning out through the window himself and passing their driver a large handful of dollar bills. Six hundred and fifty dollars, to be precise.

"Certainly, young master," the servant replied. 

Marco thanked the man, and soon they found themselves surrounded by Star-themed trinkets. Jackie was holding a wooden replica of Star's wand with a glowing star in the middle, while Marco held on to a similarly adorned wooden sword. He was also wearing a horned diadem on top of his hair, which contrasted with his otherwise impeccably prince-like attire. It was really surprising how handsome the boy looked in that whole getup. He was even wearing shoulder pads and a cape, atop a regal looking white vest. Star's blue and white dress was even more ornate, and she was wearing an actual gold crown atop her massive updo. Compared to the both of them, Jackie, even in her best sea-green formal dress, felt way under-dressed.

"Marco, you know this is all for kids, right?" Star groaned, as Marco brandished the wooden toy around, badly. The princess seemed used to the commotion around them, but at the same time, bothered about it in a resigned sort of way. She sat in the long cushioned seat facing backwards from the front of the carriage, clearly uninterested in the view of Mewni's castle, which the opposite seat offered the two humans. Jackie wouldn't miss that majestic sight for the world, but she figured that, to Star, it was just home. "This whole thing is going to be so boring, and so pointless..." the Mewman gripped.

"But Star," Marco smiled at the other girl, giving her a fake pleading look. "How can we cheer on for your Princess Song, if we are not waving around the merchandise!" he joked, getting a broad smile out of the magical princess despite her sulky mood. Jackie laughed approvingly. Oh Marco, he was such a cute idiot sometimes!

"Marco, you are not going to be wearing those," Star took off his horns. "Or waving any of this stuff out there. As part of the royal entourage, you are supposed to wave politely, smile measuredly, and be proper and regal. Honestly, it really really sucks. Sorry to drag you guys to this!"

"Come on Star, this is pretty cool! I mean, I feel like I am hanging out with a celebrity," Jackie said, making it sound like a joke. In reality, it was a bit intimidating. Mostly because it was true: she was hanging out with a famous celebrity. No, more than a celebrity. These people weren't Star's fans, they were her subjects.

Even if the princess didn't make a big deal of it, and even if Jackie never gave it that much thought when they were on Earth, it was pretty clear that Star came from a very different social class than the two humans did. And, well, of course, that didn't matter: she was her friend, and Marco's other sweetheart, first, magical princess second. But the human girl would be lying if she said that, now that she found herself confronted with the reality of Star truly being a magical princess, with a kingdom of her own, she didn't find it at least a bit intimidating.

"Yeah, Star, besides, weren't you saying you and Ruberiot changed a lot of stuff on that song?" Marco asked, and the princess' eyes lit up. "Can't be boring if you helped write it!"

"Oh, yeah, can't wait for you guys to hear it!" She beamed. "It's going to be so much better than my mom's old song! Just hope she doesn't have an attack from it... I mean, I don't think even her can get an actual heart attack from a song, but..." she trailed off and laughed nervously.

Taking full advantage of the lull in the conversation, Jackie pulled Marco closer to her side of the couch. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and turned to kiss him. Their lips met and they melted into each other briefly. It was a reassurance thing, again, just making sure Marco still thought both of his girlfriends were cool enough. She felt a bit guilty about it but, fortunately, Star's reaction was nothing like that at the concert.

"Awwww, you two!" the mewman grinned. "Better get the smooches out while you can, though. I think it might be better if we all keep it friends-like in front of my mom..."

Star had mentioned that, if they needed to introduce anyone as a couple today, it would be Jackie and Marco, just as it was in school. But she had also asked if they could all just act like friends. She seemed nervous about showing any part of their complicated relationship around her people, and specially around her mother, the queen. Jackie could understand that. What if some day Star had to introduce Marco as her boyfriend? She would have a lot to explain if they previously introduced him as Jackie's, particularly if she was still in the picture. Given that Star was doing her a really big favor simply by inviting her to the Song Day celebration at all, Jackie felt that following her request not to flaunt her relationship with Marco was the least she could do. That didn't mean, however, that Marco and her didn't get to be boyfriend and girlfriend behind the privacy of the carriage's doors and curtains.

"Oh, right," Marco quipped at Star as soon as Jackie let go of his lips. Then, in his best imitation of Queen Moon's voice, he continued, "Star, public displays of affection aren't a Butterfly virtue."

Star rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, not-a-Butterfly-virtue this!" she shouted and jumped from her side right on top of Marco's lap, straddling him. One of her legs falling atop Jackie's own.

"Star, that sentence made no sen... ooh," Marco began to complain, but Star shut up their boyfriend with a deep kiss. Jackie laughed. Princess or no princess, magical kingdom or no magical kingdom, it was hard to see Star as anything other than the happy-go-lucky friend she knew. Feeling appropriately reassured, Jackie was left only to ponder how comfortable the three of them had grown with one another in such a short span of time.

\----

"With all due respect, Moon, we need to talk now!" Hekapoo asserted herself, angrily stomping her foot on the ground.

"Hekapoo, I told you, we will re-convene after the celebration, it is starting as we speak..." Moon replied impatiently, as she tried frantically to adjust her hair.

"Omnitraxus is gone!" the sorceress argued. "We can't get ahold of Glossaryck either, turns out nobody has seen him in months. I assume he is with your daughter, in which case she must bring him here immediately!"

"Omnitraxus, gone?" Moon replied, pausing for a moment, sounding genuinely surprised. "Are you sure of this?"

"Sure as can be, my queen," Romulus interrupted. "Thought glass ball might be on the frizz. Went to find him in person. Not in time dimension! Not anywhere!"

"We need Glossaryck," Hekapoo continued exasperated. "He and Omnitraxus are the only two who can find someone instantly across dimensions, and since Omnitraxus is the one who is missing..."

"Alright, alright," Moon raised a hand. "Hekapoo, there is some stuff I need to tell you, and you are not going to like it. I promise to explain it all, but only after Star's song is done. We have this under control, an hour is not going to kill anyone, alright?"

"But, Queen Moon..." she began, angrily, but was swiftly cut off.

"Hekapoo, I have my duties to my kingdom and my responsibilities as a mother. One hour. One song. After that, I promise you I'll make this whole high commission business my first priority," she looked at the short sorceress directly in the eyes, then placed a hand firmly on her shoulder. "Trust me, Hekapoo: I. Will. Do. My. Job."

The Forger of Dimensional Scissors held the gaze briefly, then she smiled, nodded, and gave her queen a deep bow, "Of course, your majesty."

Hekapoo was not easily appeased, but she had learned to trust the word of Moon the Undaunted, specially when she used that tone. Without further argument, they all walked out together into the castle's balcony, leaving only the empty crystal ball behind, as to not alarm the other guests with the dark void it displayed.

\----

"And now, Mewni's newest court composer, the songstrel, Ruberiot..." shouted the announcer. The crowds below clapped loudly. "In honor of the royal family..." The spotlight went up, shining on Queen Moon, and King River, and Star, and, well, on him. Marco nervously shuffled himself out of the bright radius, almost crashing into Jackie, who sat to the right of the whole row, and begun clapping towards Star. The princess of Mewni simply waved around, like it was nothing, while the two human teenagers exchanged an uncomfortable look. Clearly, this was way too much exposure, for either of them. Although, Jackie, as usual, seemed to be handling it better. 

Besides a general discomfort about being the center of attention at this scale, Marco also wasn't sure he wanted to create any implications that he was part of any royal family. I mean, dating Star was one thing, and it was amazing. But, well, he guessed neither of them were thinking at all about the future. Hell, for all he knew, Star might be just thinking about him as a fling of her teenage years, before she actually set to look for the kind of guy that would be able to handle her life as Queen of Mewni. That seemed pretty likely, now that he thought of it, specially given their unconventional relationship. When the Earth boy thought of that, he wasn't sure whether he felt sad, or relieved. It was clear that the crown weighted pretty heavy on Star, and she was like ten times stronger than he was, metaphorically just as well as literally. If she could barely handle that life, then what hope did he have?

He was interrupted from such grim and rather premature reflections, by the sound of slow chords on a lute, amplified by god knows which magic to the point to which the notes actually reached all the way to their balcony, together with the songstrel's words. A ridiculously happy marionette of Star, with literal hearts for eyes, glided into the stage as Ruberiot began singing. The puppet dramatically mimicked along with the lyrics.

Who is the maid with the buttercup hair?  
Who sleeps on moonbeams and dances on air  
With tears made of honey and a heart full of bunnies  
Whose infinite virtues are known near and far  
It's Mewni's own sweetheart, our dear Princess Staaar

Even Marco felt weird hearing his best friend described that way. Sure, that was Star, kinda, she was a happy joyful girl that could, sometimes literally, dance on air. But there was also so much more to her than that! He glanced at her, to gauge her own reaction, and saw her cringe and grimace. A second later, though, she turned to him and Jackie and sent them a brief wink.

Marco wondered what kind of changes Star could have made to the song. She had refused to tell him much about the plans she had made with the annoying musician the other night, except to say that they had reached an agreement, and that it would be nothing like her mom's princess song. Marco was a bit worried, considering how Star sometimes got carried away with expressing herself, and how important this event seemed to be for her and her family. But on the other hand, deep down she knew all that much better than he did, and he trusted Star. Besides, if worst came to worst, surely the songstrel would make sure the show went well. The other day he had seemed, well, terrified of not being able to do his job properly, which meant he would probably make sure to strike a balance between pleasing Star and Queen Moon, right?

And under the shimmer and rubies and pearls  
Lies hidden a fierce and adventurous girl  
The forces of evil that lurk in the night  
Will cower in fear when this shooting Star...  
...ignites!

Marco was thinking to himself how those verses fit Star so much better than the previous ones, when Ruberiot jumped forward and literally smashed his lute against the floor. The bold gesture drew oh's of surprise from the crowd, including Marco and Jackie. In the confusion, the musician seemed to pull a guitar out of thin air, and the stage exploded into a light show and a really sweet rock beat. "Whoohoo!" Marco yelled, and he wasn't the only one. Queen Moon looked a bit surprised, but not angry. This was just perfect, this was Star!

\----

Weaving magic like a born spell-caster  
And wreaking havoc like a natural disaster  
She rocks her Narwhal Blast and Warnicorn Stampede  
She's gonna earn her crown, so hail to the quee-e-e-een!

Wow, now that was cool! Jackie had to admit she was impressed. Not just by the song or the elaborate visuals, but by Star herself. She might not know the mewman girl as well as Marco did, but she knew the song was all true. Star was not only royalty, she was some sort of magical fantasy warrior-girl! Again, Star was cool and popular back in Echo Creek too, but it was easy to forget there just how incredible the girl truly was, just her intrinsically, without putting an ounce of effort into it. Like, how on Earth was that Jackie still held on to her cool girl title when she had someone like Star around? She herself didn't understand how that was possible.

'No, come on Jackie, be chill, you are not competing with Star' she mentally reminded herself. Her eyes drifted towards the girl, and she saw how the princess carelessly danced punching the air. She looked then at Marco, who stared intently at the stage below and cheered. Ugh, she felt a sickly gluey sensation in her stomach, like if she had eaten something bad. Jackie wasn't happy with how she felt about this now. It wasn't like she had anything against Star, or against her being royalty or famous, and she didn't worry about her and Marco. Jealousy wasn't her thing, right? She was happy when her boyfriend was with someone cool, it made her cool by transitivity, did it not? Then what exactly was this feeling eating at her now? Why wasn't she happy for Star like everyone else was? Like she should be?

'Cause she's a rebel princess, she's the best  
She's a ball of lightning in a hot pink dress  
She's a thunderstorm roaring through the night  
She's our shooting Star, and she's lighting up the sky!

Yeah... yes she was, and Jackie was, well, what was she? A moderately popular high school girl in a small town in California? How had she managed to get to Marco first? And what had made her think it was a good idea to open her relationship to Star? I mean, Marco might like them both equally now, or so he said, but one day he would figure out how much cooler Star was than her, and then what? Maybe this whole thing was a mistake, and she should have kept her big mouth shut. Even if the three of them were pretty happy together for now, how could she be sure it would last that way?

Jackie took a deep breath. Wow, Star was right, this jealousy and self-doubt stuff was way heavy. She reminded herself of the advice she had given the other girl when the roles were reversed and it was the princess that, for some unknown reason, had felt jealous of her. 'Well, Lynn Thomas,' she silently chided herself, 'don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk...' She would learn to feel happy about Marco having someone like Star too, and deal with her own doubts on the matter, it just maybe was a little bit harder than she had anticipated, specially after witnessing something like this.

\----

Star looked at her friends and family, and was pleased to see happy faces all around. She loved her song, and they loved it too! Even her mom seemed pleased, "What a delightful little ditty. Good job, Star!"

"Uh, right. It's not over yet," she replied. It really wasn't, and even she didn't know what to expect. Ruberiot had asked her for help with all of the parts so far, particularly with the stage work for this last part. He had needed some serious Butterfly Light and Magic to get those Narwhals and Warnicorns ready in time. However, for the third act, he had shooed her away, something about true art needing solitude. She only knew one thing about the third act, that it would be a darker contrast compared to the previous two segments; which is why she didn't feel too worried when she heard slow somber chords coming from the songstrel's guitar, or saw bright red light overflowing the stage from behind.

Of royal secrets - sadly I must tell,  
A tale of a princess under tragic love spell

She blushed a little. Well, Ruberiot had said this was necessary, for it to be real, and that he would keep things hidden and metaphoric. She was sure she could take this, in the name of the people of Mewni truly getting to know something about the real her. She just hoped her mom would not be too shocked at the result. I mean, after all, she knew about her dating Tom before being sent to Earth, and that was all she really expected to hear put into her song. She had once dated a demon, big freaking deal...

And who is the boy in the earthly attire?  
Attached once already to the one he admires  
Our princess with longing, watching from afar,  
the prince who unwittingly stole her young heart!

Wait? What?! What was a puppet of Marco doing there, and a puppet of Jackie? And, they were dancing, waltzing around on literally tangling strings. Puppet-Star glided back into stage and glanced at them from the ground, falling on her knees, clutching her heart. It hadn't been like that at all! Star told herself, unconvincingly. Ok, alright, it had been like that, but why was this in her Princess Song? 

This wasn't what she and Ruberiot talked about! It was supposed to be about Tom, about her previous relationship with him, with a demon, as kids. That was scandal enough! She barely told anything about Marco, let alone him and Jackie, to Ruby. She glanced at Moon, who had one eyebrow up in a regal gesture of surprise and mild confusion. Besides her, River was glaring daggers her way. Wait, no, he was glaring daggers at Marco!

Star glanced at the two human kids and saw that they had the same awkward confused expression on their faces as she did. "Sorry-Ruberiot-never-told-me-about-this-part!" she apologized. 

Down on the streets the people were silent, and the tune picked up into slow and powerful riffs. Ruberiot sang the next few verses as if it were a modern epic, punctuated by metal cords. It would be kinda cool, if the subject of matter weren't so incredibly humiliating.

With ache in her chest, with tears in her eyes,  
She masked her feelings, encased them in ice.  
And as I have promised, I won't say his name,  
But our poor little princess confides in a fiend.

Then, a perfect puppet replica of Tom, three red-glowing eyes and everything, entered stage left. So, this was about Tom after all? Wait, about Tom after Marco and Jackie? Oh, no! No, no, no, no! This is not what she wanted. She had told Ruberiot this stuff was a secret, surely he wouldn't dare include it. She looked panicked at Marco. She hadn't told him yet! She had meant to, but, it was never the right time. This was not how he was supposed to find out about that night. Please, please don't be about that night!

She saw with horror as her own puppet glided towards puppet-Tom and began dancing with him.

Playing with fire, and dancing on knives,  
A tale of ex-lovers, of rebels, of knaves,  
Of old flames yet burning, with passionate hate,  
By dark they adjourn to their private daaaate!

A powerful chord punctuated the end of the verse and suddenly the stage lights blasted red at their maximum brightness, blinding everyone in the audience, before going dark in one fell swoop. Ok, that was a lot more than Star wanted the people of Mewni to know about the real her. But at least Ruby had kept his promise, he had kept it tasteful and metaphorical, almost. That last line was still way too obvious if you asked Star, but she could still play it off. She could explain "a date" with Tom to Marco, is not like he was her boyfriend at the time! It was none of his business! Her mom would be too embarrassed to ask for details, and her people could be convinced she had, I dunno, like, simply hung out with Tom. This was bad, but it could have been so much worse.

As soon as Star thought that, the stage begun lighting up again. Ruberiot was there in the middle, his guitar laying on the floor, and he had changed his outfit again. He wore loosely fitting jeans and a ragged t-shirt with a musical note inside a star on the middle. He also wore an impractical amount of golden jewelry for some reason, and a blue baseball cap turned backwards on his head. He looked to the floor and counted the beat with his left foot. Apparently, he wasn't quite done yet.

Then Star saw the panel behind the songstrel. It was a crude painting of an irregular stone brick wall, and a small river, and a bridge. She recognized it immediately and her heart almost jumped to her throat. She felt paralyzed. It was a graffiti painting of the bridge where the three of them had released the ducks back into the creek, and where later that night she and Tom had... No, no way! Ruby wouldn't do that! Would he?

With beats so inspired, and verses so fly,  
I rap of the dalliances of Star Butterfly!

He would! Oh damn it, he would! Also, a rap? What the hell, Ruberiot? What the hell?! Star considered for a moment just taking her wand and blasting the stage, or creating a distraction somehow. Or plain just running away herself. But she couldn't move a finger. She felt her palms get sweaty. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the shocked, huge-eyed expressions on Jackie and Marco's faces, as they begun processing the next few lines.

Under moonlight she craves alleviation,  
Heart, loins, both need consolation.  
She knows she is a liar, and feels like she cheats,  
Got the harsh stone floor, not her silky bedsheets!

As Ruberiot busted out such crude lyrics, a shadow play unfolded behind him, cast on the wall drawn on the stage curtains. Star could clearly make out a shadow representing herself as it embraced and kissed a shadow clearly representing Tom. Her wings and his horns made it obvious which one was which, despite the limitations of shadow puppetry. She saw the projected shapes fall together into the floor, in a clear depiction of two people having sex together. What was Ruberiot thinking?! How on Mewni was this any sort of metaphor?! Star was now hoping the chair she was sitting on would swallow her whole. She could not wait for this torture to end.

And he pushes and pulls, he cuts and he bruises,  
Demon prince's charms with deep carnal uses.  
Release that she finds, amidst all this harming,  
it fails to replace her one true prince charming!

A second spotlight shone on the stage, far up and to the left. Now it was shadow-Marco and shadow-Jackie, hugging each other while they sat together on the outline of a shadowy bed, clearly making out. Star ventured a look towards her friends, and saw that they were also beet red and looking around uncomfortably. Everyone else in the entire kingdom seemed transfixed, silently looking at the scene in front of them, in a mixture of shock and morbid curiosity. Star saw her shadowy doppelganger conspicuously look up towards the scene involving Marco and Jackie, even as shadow-Tom still laid atop her.

Our princess so valiant, our princes so bold,  
she slays down her foe with an action so cold.  
For her lips do reveal, what her touches must hide,  
the name of the boy that lits her inside!

A red heart lit up in the middle of her shadow and Marco's, and the shadow representing Tom stood up and ran away, in obvious pain and anger. The lights dimmed down. The shadows vanished, and Ruberiot took his guitar again.

'Please be over, please be over,' Star thought to herself. But then again, how could it not be? Ruberiot had already sung everything she had told him, in excruciating and indecent detail. There literally could not be anything worse to come.

The wooden puppets from earlier floated into the stage: Star, Marco and Jackie. They looked at one another and then down towards the floor as if sad. The next few chords were slow and acoustic, sounding almost like waltz music. Ruberiot continued in a soft melodious voice.

Our story has a happy ending,  
for our princess and her future king,  
confession and feelings requited,  
that results in a triangular swing.

The puppets acted as if they were speaking to each other, until finally they all held hands and begun floating up, rotating as if they all danced together.

For Marco is Jackie's and Staaaar's!  
And it works for our princess  
...so faaar!

And with one last guitar riff, Ruberiot fell silent and bowed deeply to the audience. Moments passed, and not a noise was heard. Then a steady confused murmur rose from the crowd.

"What's wrong? You are supposed to be clapping!" the songstrel spoke finally. His pleas immediately drowned by angry shouts from the audience. Star heard some very unkind words used to describe her and her friends, and those were just the one's she recognized. Star looked at Marco and Jackie, they both stared back at her in shock, without saying a word, and eventually she couldn't help but avoid their gaze. She looked at her mom, expecting to see anger in her eyes, but Queen Moon's regretful expression hurt her even more than the fury she expected. 

The queen lifted up from her chair and motioned everyone to go back into the castle, Star and her friends first. Star's dad looked like he was about to chase after them, his angry sight still trained on Marco, but Moon put her arm in front of him, stopping his husband.

\----

"Star!" Moon was the first to speak. "What was that?!" She seemed furious, genuinely confused, and very uncomfortable, all at once.

"Mom, I am sorry, I didn't know, I didn't think... I am sorry, ok?" She was. Under other circumstances she would have argued more, reminded her mom she could not have done the kind of fluffy pop song she expected. But this time she was truly sorry, and she didn't even know what for. For the song? For Tom? For Jackie and Marco?

"Star, as a ruler, there are some things you don't say about yourself. What you tell your people has implications, for you and for your friends," Moon explained, angrily. "I can't believe you would be so foolish as to encourage these sort of rumors about yourself!"

"Mom, I swear I didn't know Ruberiot would say anything about that," Star replied. Then, she processed what her mom was saying. Rumors? Did she think the song was fake? Or was it that she wanted to pretend it was fake? Was it only the citizens of Mewni or did her mother too wanted to pretend Star was a perfect little princess? Star knew this was hardly the time to make things worse, but something in Moon's words just angered her, beyond the shame and dread she now felt. "But well, mom, they are not rumors. Marco is my boyfriend! ... mine and Jackie's..." The Mewman princess shot her mother a determined look.

Queen Moon sighed and lifted a hand to her forehead, massaging her temple. "And I suppose you have given full thought to what it would mean for Mewni to have a king regent with a second wife? Or for your other friend to accept a more, lets say, secondary position, for the sake of the monarchy?"

"What?! Mom, no, I mean, I haven't even thought about... he is my boyfriend, but well... we never talked about..." Star protested. King regent? She was pretty certain she loved Marco, but that sounded too, well, permanent. She wasn't even on board with the idea of being queen herself, thinking about a royal husband was the furthest thing from her mind.

"I know, I know, sweetie. But well, that's what a lot of people in Mewni are going to be discussing tonight. And they will discuss it again, whenever Marco comes to visit, or for how ever long you stay on Earth. Incidentally, they will also discuss whether consorting with demons makes one a dark queen, in the same way consorting with monsters does. It is all nonsense, in either case, but it might just be how they see it. 

Star, the magic wand guarantees your own right of succession, no matter how many traditions you break, or how flagrantly. But that doesn't mean there are never consequences. Honestly, in the long run this all could lead to pretty bad things happening, mostly to her and to the boy..." Moon looked to the side, as if embarrassed of what she was about to suggest next, "Perhaps the best course of action is for you to distance yourself from your Earth friends. Maybe if we do that, further rumors can be avoided..."

"Mom?!" Star was shocked. Was her mom saying she could not date Marco anymore? Or that she could not go back to Earth? "No, I love Marco! I might not know much about the future, but I don't want to not see him again, or Jackie either! Not over a stupid song!"

"A song that has put them both in danger, and you and me in a very delicate political position. What do you want me to do, Star?!" the queen retorted, sounding as tired and frustrated as Star was feeling.

"I want you," a fierce voice remarked behind the princess, "to do your job."

Hekapoo walked between Star and Queen Moon, cutting through the tense atmosphere like a hot knife through butter, staring up at the monarch of Mewni with a fierce glare.

"Hekapoo, I am sorry, this is kind of an emergency..." Star's mom began.

"So is Omnitraxus being missing!" Hekapoo remarked. "An emergency you promised to handle before anything else. Certainly before the political implications of your daughter's teenage indiscretions. Or is the kingdom going to fall tonight just because some people are going to be talking badly about the princess' private matters? Because, well, if so, certainly a lot has changed since the days when you first took the throne..."

Moon's cheeks reddened slightly, and Star felt like she was missing some subtext to this conversation, a lot of subtext, actually. The queen coughed briefly, "yeah, well, you are right, of course, Hekapoo. Star, we will discuss this fully sometime soon. But please, try to not drop any more shocking revelations on the kingdom, at least for a while..."

Hekapoo followed Moon through a huge double door. Lekmet, Romulus and even King River followed close behind. After they were all gone, Star felt a hand drop on her shoulder. She looked back to see, well, Hekapoo again! No matter how many times she did that, her whole cloning thing was always super weird. "Well, nicely done, kid, you really fucked up this time," the sorceress smiled at her, giving her at once a mocking grin and a comforting wink.

"Yeah, I know," Star replied with a half-smile. This Hekapoo just gave her a nod of acknowledgement and poofed out of existence.

The princess was unspeakably thankful at the high commissioner for running interference like that. Unfortunately, her mom wasn't the only one Star had to talk to right now. She heard a voice behind her way before she was done processing the previous exchange, "Eh, Star..."

It was Jackie, but she seemed very un-Jackie like. She was looking at the floor and her voice felt flat and uncertain.

"Jackie, I am so sorry, I..." Star begun, but Jackie cut her off with a hand gesture.

"Actually, Star, I am sorry too. First, I sort of overheard your conversation with your mom right now, so, well, sorry about that," the human girl apologized. "For the record, I understand if you decide not to go back to Earth because of what is best for yourself, for your mom or for Marco, but as far as I am concerned, I don't care what kind of crazy political danger our relationship puts me in on Mewnie. We will figure stuff out if there is ever stuff to be figured out, but it is not anyone else's business but ours. If your subjects disagree, they can go suck on a big fat juicy..." she trailed off.

"... lemon?" Star suggested, but her tone made it perfectly clear she knew that wasn't where the other girl was going with that sentence.

Jackie chuckled briefly, before getting back into a very serious expression, "But also, I want to apologize too for, well, for not really believing you when you said being a princess sort of sucked? I don't know if you noticed at all but, today I've been, well... lets just say I got impressed by your life here, and how much people care about you and look up to you, and I sort of got a bit envious of that, you know?"

"Ptfff," Star almost laughed. "If it were up to me, you could have it instead, all of it, Jackie."

"Yeah, I know," she looked around nervously. "Not sure I want it anymore. I think Marco knew already why you felt like you did about being a princess... I just didn't fully get it, until now."

Oh, right, Marco! "How is he doing?"

"Not well," Jackie replied. "He is not really talking to me right now..."

Star felt a weight drop in her stomach. She turned around to see Marco with his forehead against a wall, fists closed. Oh fuck, guess he was taking the Tom thing worse than she expected? Again, it wasn't as if it was really any of his business, that was before they started dating, even if only by about twenty hours or so. Then again, considering how she had felt about him and Jackie... And, even back then, Star actually liked Jackie. Marco hated Tom. Well, not as much a few days ago as he did when they first met. But those two, they were, well, on complicated terms. Competitive too. This was not going to be an easy conversation.

"Hey, Marco!" She put her best happy face forward. "Guess that wasn't as boring in the end as I feared, but well, it was sort of terrible for a different reason..." she babbled at him.

"Star," Marco spoke slowly, without turning back, looking at the floor, his clenched fist trembling in anger. "It's just... well, why didn't you tell me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marco is not taking it well. 
> 
> Also, we are 100% off the rails now! As in, there is no more viable cannon continuity that this fic will follow. From here on out, anything can happen! And there have been some interesting predictions in the comments... ;}
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 13: 'Cause she's a Rebel Princess, She's the Best_


	13. 'Cause she's a Rebel Princess, She's the Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things are awkward between Star and Marco, there is an abundance of princesses, Hekapoo and Moon converse, and yet another villain is introduced.

## Chapter 13: 'Cause she's a Rebel Princess, She's the Best

> 'Cause she's a rebel princess, she's the best  
>  She's a ball of lightning in a hot pink dress  
>  \- The Songstrel Ruberiot (both continuities)  
> 

"Star," Marco spoke slowly, without turning back, looking at the floor, his clenched fist trembling in anger. "It's just... well, why didn't you tell me?"

Deep hurt dripped from the boy's quiet voice. He seemed to carefully weight every word, as if trying to hold back something of which he himself felt ashamed. Star thought she could hear the tiniest hint of an accusatory note, lingering just below the surface, but she wasn't sure. She knew him better than just about anyone, and yet, for once, she couldn't read him. The princess took a deep breath.

"I am sorry, Marco, alright," she mustered. She was sorry about the whole Tom incident, and not only because of what the people of Mewnie might think of her now, or because of how much it apparently pained Marco. That night had ended up in nothing but bad feelings for everyone involved, and apparently her decisions that day were not yet done messing up her life. Fuck Tom! Well, no, actually, don't fuck Tom. That was what caused the problem in the first place!

Then again, if she hadn't done that, would she and Marco ever gotten together? Without Janna's bizarre plot, without that night of imagining Marco while laying with Tom, without the magical link she had not yet even told him about, without him shouting her name to Jackie, without Jackie's crazy-awesomeness... without all of that, would they have ever come to date? If the answer was no, then no matter the bad feelings, and no matter the song, and no matter the kingdom, and no matter her mom, she had to stand by her decision. That night with Tom was worth it, but only because it brought her and Marco together. Unless, of course, it was now about to break them apart.

"Star, is not about you being sorry, is just..." Marco started to say something. Star cut him off. He was probably going to go on saying how she was a terrible person for sleeping with Tom, or at least to ask why she had chosen Tom specifically. She didn't want to hear that. She didn't have an answer. She could not even explain how it had, in the end, been for the best. At least, she couldn't do so without telling Marco her last shameful secret, that of the seeing-eye spell, at a time where it could only worsen things.

"Look, Marco, I really am sorry," she apologized again, lamely. If only Janna were here, she thought. The troublemaker girl always knew what to say in this kind of situation. "I am sorry, but, well, Marco, honestly? It is not really any of your business. It happened before we started dating, while you were dating Jackie. It was my choice, and perhaps it wasn't a great choice, but well, since when I am known to always make great choices? It happened, it's over, can we just move on?"

"Wait, what? No, Star, Tom isn't the problem!" Marco burst out, surprising Star. He turned around. He looked so angry, and at the same time, he seemed to be making an effort to stop himself from crying. Star was trying to contain her own tears as well. "Don't get me wrong, I don't trust Tom, and if he did anything to hurt you... if he mistreated you in any way... well, never mind. You once said you could handle a demon, and I know you can take care of yourself. I know you don't need a hero, Star..."

The mewman girl thought back to when she had said that to her best friend. It seemed so long ago now, another lifetime almost. She was much less sure of her ability to handle Tom after that night, after how defenseless she had felt in the end, unable to even dip down into herself. But Tom had not, in fact, harmed her. If anything, it had been the other way around. Star wondered if Marco somehow intuited that, if that was why he was angry. Did he perceive that she had, in a way, used Tom to get him instead? Would he think she was a horrible person for it? "Ok, Marco, if Tom isn't the issue, then what is it?" 

"Star, it's just, I wish you had told me, that you had told me about..."

Marco's words were drowned by an unexpected 'Whoosh!' sound, and a surprised yelp from Jackie. The skateboarder girl had drifted towards the other corner of the huge hall, giving Star and Marco space to sort things out, literally. She had been looking away from the both of them, in what Star thought was her best effort not to eavesdrop, without actually having to leave the room. Star figured her friend didn't want to risk running into Moon, the high commission, or basically anyone in the entire kingdom who had listened to the song and now probably thought of her as the concubine of Mewni's future king, or whatever such nonsense. However, the way the girl had positioned herself meant she was easily taken by surprise as a tear opened up in the fabric of reality, right behind her. The tips of a pair of scissors materialized themselves in mid air, quickly cutting a shimmering blue portal through the empty space.

Jackie was even more surprised, evidenced by a wide-eyed open-mouthed break of her usual cool composure, when a disembodied horned horse head came out flying from the portal, its tongue still somehow holding on to the dimensional scissors. Star herself barely noticed the diminutive winged pixie girl that emerged next, following the first intruder.

"Whatsuuup B-fly!?" Ponyhead shouted. She glanced up and down at her Song Day outfit. "Looking goooood, girl!"

"Princess Ponyhead?!" Star shouted back, partly in surprise, partly in excitement. Despite the awful timing, it was good to once again see her best bestie in all of Mewnie. "What are you doing here? I though you were partying it up in St. O's!"

"Well, yeah, about that... well, Star, don't get too worried or anything, but we might have run into a little bit of trouble over there..." Ponyhead did that nervous looking around thing she always did whenever she got involved in some truly bad stuff and didn't want to admit it. "Things are not as good as when you two left, and well, turns out we might need a seriously baaad-ass princess to come and set some heads right, if you know what I mean?"

"I have no idea what you mean..." Star admitted, "but I am in!" She twirled her wand around in her hand and gave her best attempt at a menacing look. If they needed a seriously bad-ass princess, they had come to the right place.

Ok, sure, she really really needed to finish having this talk with Marco first. Then again, the talk was super mega awkward. So, maybe this was for the best? And, well, if the princesses of St O's needed her, if her bestie needed her, then how could she say no?

Marco scowled, not so much at her, but rather at the interrupting unicorn princess. It was clear that he hadn't gotten what he needed off his chest. Unfortunately, Star wasn't sure she wanted, or could handle, to hear it right now. Perhaps if she ignored the issue long enough, Marco would forget, or at least, calm down somewhat. Avoidance! Just as she originally planned to respond to her song day. And well, hadn't she been right back then? If she hadn't talked to Ruberiot, then none of this would have happened! Of course, it wasn't like she was planning on never again talking to Marco, just, like, give both him and herself a little time to think. That was a good idea, right? Right? 

"Actually, B-fly, don't take this the wrong way, I know we are both best besties, and totally super-tough bad-ass princesses and all... but I kinda meant Earth Turd..." Ponyhead admitted sheepishly, shooting a look Marco's way, and rolling her eyes.

"Me?!" Marco glanced confused at Star, then back at the body-absent princess. "This is kind of a bad time for jokes, Pointy-head..." 

Before he could say another word, the pixie girl came up flying towards them, quickly positioning herself in between Ponyhead and the two kids, and giving Marco a deep bow. "Please, Princess Marco! I am Princess Glintwisp of Pixtopia. I am sorry to ask, especially if we have indeed come at a bad time. But, for the good of the revolution, in the name of all princesses everywhere, I implore you! We need your help once more. Some of the girls have gone astray, and I fear that without your inspiration and leadership, we might soon lose the very individuality we fought to achieve!"

Seeing as how this was now anything but a private moment, Jackie walked towards the group, raised an eyebrow, and shot their boyfriend a quizzical look. "Princess Marco?"

\----

"So," Jackie finally spoke, once Ponyhead first, then Star, were done bringing her up to date with the situation, more or less. "Let me see if I got this all straight: There is, or used to be, an inter-dimensional school dedicated to literally brainwashing princesses - which, by the way, fuck that!"

"You can say that again," commented Star, with a shudder.

"And flying horse-head over here, which happens to be Star's childhood friend, was sent there by her own family," the human girl continued.

"Excuse me?! Friend? I happen to be Star's bestest bestie overall! And it is Flying Princess Horse-Head to you, monkey-face!" Ponyhead retorted.

"Whatever," Jackie shrugged. It had been clear for a while that the other princess didn't like her much, and it was getting to be fairly mutual. From what Marco had said, she never liked any of Star's friends at first. She was, 'possessive', whatever that meant. In any case, Jackie Lynn Thomas wasn't going to be pushed around by a disembodied horse head, at least not now that the initial shock wore off. "The point is, Star and Marco went there to throw horse-head a birthday party, and in the process he ended up leading a rebellion. While dressed like a princess, for some reason."

"Oh, you should have seen it, Jackie!" Star shouted excitedly. "You have no idea how well Marco pulls off a pink dress!"

"Star!" Marco protested. The mewman princess seemed to suddenly remember she and the boy were not in the best terms right now, and begun to stammer an apology.

"Actually, I can see that, Star," Jackie tried to make the save. Honestly, she wasn't sure what Marco's issue was. Yes, the song had been uncomfortable, for everyone involved. But if there was anyone who should be in a sullen mood over that, it was Star. Marco and herself had at most gotten splash damage from that particular bomb. "And he, or 'she', somehow became an icon of a revolutionary movement of princesses. Which, incidentally, mostly consisted of turning St O's into a party school. Correct so far?"

"Not just a party school, monkey-face, the best party school in the multiverse!" Ponyhead insisted. "Mostly because it had me in it! Of course!" The disembodied horse head made a puckered lips expression that Jackie assumed was meant to be sexy, but was instead disturbing in the extreme.

"Sure, whatever. But the problem is that it is not about having a party school anymore, not since this Miss White appeared and took over the 'movement', correct?" Jackie finished. "And now you want Marco to go chase this person away, just as he did with Miss Heinous."

"It is Princess White, not Miss White, and, well, not quite. We want Princess Marco to remind the girls of the ideas of the revolution: individuality, self expression, freedom!" Princess Glintwisp finally interjected. "White claims to care about that, but everything is about power and control for her in the end. I think the girls know that, but they won't listen to us, they are too scared. But with Princess Marco to inspire them again, I think we have a chance!"

"So, basically," Jackie reasoned. "You had a revolution, which ended up propping a dictator of sorts, and now you are asking the original revolutionaries to come back and oppose this character? Uh, Marco, I know you are not as much of a history nerd as I am, but, well, you know this is a bad idea, right?"

"Uh, why would it be a bad idea?" interjected Star.

"Nah, she is right, Star," Marco sighed. "I can see this ending badly. But I guess if things are as bad as these two say they are, then we don't really have a choice. I mean, we kind of created this whole situation in the first place. Sorry to ask now, and... well... sorry to postpone... you know, but... could you... princess me?" He gave Jackie a concerned look. "Hopefully this isn't going to be too weird?"

"Yeah, right, of course, Marco," Star stammered awkwardly. What the hell was wrong between the two of them? Jackie thought to herself. Star raised her wand, gave it a swirl and, "Radiant Shadow Transform!!"

Marco seemed to float up into the air, right below the hall's tall ceiling. His skin and clothes became covered in blinding bright purple light and streams of white light crisscrossed over his body as it contorted in midair. It was impossible to see properly through the spell's light show, but it seemed like it first made his princely suit vanish, replacing it then bit by bit with a puffy pink dress with a huge ribbon over his waist. Honestly, it was surprising how well Marco could pull that off too. Especially when he landed back to the floor, the magical glow fading away as his heeled feet touched the ground. He had a determined and confident expression Jackie had only occasionally seen on him. It was almost like he was wearing a battle outfit of sorts, rather than a frilly pink dress.

"Alright, Pointy-head, Glitterwisp, lets go set things straight, my wayward sisters!" Marco remarked. The pixie princess saluted him, while Ponyhead simply took out the scissors again and attempted to hand them to Marco. He shook his head, taking his own pair of scissors from under the dress' skirt. An embossed name gleamed on them in fiery letters: 'MARCO'. With a quick movement, he cut a doorway in the air, and confidently strode through it. The two St O's princesses followed after him.

The Mewman princess was about to follow suit, but Jackie stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "Wait, Star, are you alright? What happened with you and Marco?"

"I," Star paused, uncomfortable. "I am not sure, Jackie..."

"Well, he will come around, I am sure of it. He loves you, Star, and you love him too. A stupid song is not going to change that, right?" the human girl tried to reassure her friend, and was glad to see Star smile faintly and nod in response. "But... Star, and I know is not the best timing... before we jump in through there, I sort of have a favor to ask from you...."

\----

THROUGH UNITY, VICTORY

Saint Olga's had always been a grim gray place. It was grim and gray, if luxuriously outfitted, when Miss Heinous administered it. It had remained grim and gray, and far less cared for, when the princesses took over, no matter what Pointy-head said about her own brief tenure as unofficial leader of the rebel princess movement. But now, it looked grimmer and grayer than ever. To the prison-like barbwire fence that surrounded the complex, someone had added protruding bits and pieces of broken glass, and the decor became only more oppressive and martial once you went past the gate. Once inside the courtyard, Marco noticed that the old posters, showing her as Princess Marco, had been ripped from the walls. Instead, imposing black placards showed a clenched red fist holding a crown. Disturbingly bellicose slogans were often printed atop, or around, the insignia.

DOWN WITH THE TYRANTS! PRINCESSES RULE

Ok, that one didn't even make sense. Or maybe it made too much sense. Of course princesses rule, or well, they were going to rule. So, who the hell were the tyrants, then? Their parents? Star and Moon might not have always seen eye to eye on everything, and he had the vague impression that they had ended in especially bad terms after Star's song, perhaps even worse than he and Star. But, as he looked at the posters along the courtyard walls, Marco felt these princesses were taking things way too far.

SOME FREEDOMS MUST BE POSTPONED FOR THE CAUSE

"Freedom is the cause..." he muttered, as he walked past that particular sign. Ponyhead and Glintwisp floated close by, almost huddled around him. The pixie princess nodded in silent acknowledgment of his 'wise' proclamation. They both looked cowed, even more so that they had been under Heinous and her solitary conformance chamber. Marco wondered where Star and Jackie were now. He had left the portal open for them, but when they didn't immediately follow, he decided to go ahead and take point. He needed to survey the situation before their group attracted any attention, to move while they still had the element of surprise, just like his favorite war movie hero, Rick Resilient. From what he could see, the two resident princesses had not been exaggerating when they described how bad the situation was.

"You got to be kidding me, there is no way that one is not on purpose!" came a voice from behind Marco. As he turned around, he saw Jackie casually leaning against the inside of the courtyard walls, just past the outer door, pointing at one particular slogan he had completely missed:

ALL PRINCESSES ARE EQUAL,  
BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

Now, Marco would have commented on the absurdity of the poster. He had read Animal Farm too! Ok, alright, he watched the cartoon movie, same thing. However, he was rendered speechless by the version of Jackie that confronted him. Short hair, combed back. A pair of dark green pants and matching shoulder pads, adorned in gold trimming. A white vest, buttoned in gold to her left side, and embroidered with a coat of arms: two swords crossing atop a skateboard bursting out of a seashell. Black gloves and black equestrian boots. A short red velvet cape. Jackie was standing with his feet, sorry, her feet, more than shoulder width apart and glancing at Princess Marco with a cocksure grin on his, no, her, face. She was pulling the whole 'Prince Charming' look better than Marco was comfortable admitting. In fact, he was uncomfortably sure that Jackie looked far better in her own prince outfit, than he had in his, merely hours ago.

"Jackie? What are you doing?!" he stammered in confusion. Did it meant he was gay if he thought she was handsome? Or did it mean just the opposite? Marco had long come to feel comfortable himself in a dress, even as he worried what his long-time crush might think of him for that. Turns out he needed not worry. But, instead, seeing Jackie in such a masculine presentation was a new and surreal experience for him. He liked it, and frankly wasn't fully sure what that said about himself.

"Matching my beautiful and brave princess, of course," Jackie grinned as she advanced towards him in surprisingly large strides. "I figured, if you are going to be Princess Marco, then I shall be Prince Jackie... at your service milady!" She put a hand behind her back and bowed dramatically. Before Marco could protest that he was, in truth, not a 'milady', Jackie continued, "Or should it be Prince Jack?"

"I'd keep going with Jackie," chimed up Star as she finally came in through St O's gate, in the same 'bad princess' getup she had worn the first time they were here. "Matches 'Princess Marco' better."

"Are you sure?" Jackie asked, after seeming to ponder the question for a second. She made a gesture of stroking her, nonexistent, beard. "I feel like a Jack."

"Oh, don't you worry about them gorgeous! I'll call you whatever you like," came a nasal voice from way above their position. "Right after I deliver these traitors to Princess White!"

Following the voice, out of one of the manor's windows, jumped a huge monstrous purple woman. She had an elephant trunk for a nose and a blue hairdo larger than her already gargantuan head. She wore a blue frilly dress the size of a small camping tent and was covered in jewelry, including a gem-encrusted golden crown. Out of the corners of her mouth, protruded two pointed tusks. Moving faster than could reasonably be expected from her size, she positioned herself behind Jackie, grabbed her from the waist and pointed a strange device directly at the human's face. A blinding flash exploded around them as she pushed the trigger.

"Ca-me-ra phone!" the ugly princess shouted as she took a selfie of herself with the newly minted handsome prince of the group. She then grabbed Jackie's arm, and twisted it behind her. "Now, deserter Princess Marco, traitor Princess Ponyhead, traitor Princess Glintwisp, and," she looked at Star up and down, confused, "and you, whoever you are! Follow me, or I will be forced to remove this hunk's dreamy face!"

Marco looked at Jackie first. He felt calmer when he saw she seemed more disoriented than actually afraid. He glanced then at Star, and finally at the criminal princess holding 'her prince' hostage. He and Star had met her once before, when she tried to steal the mewman princess's face in a harebrained scheme to escape from St. O's. Fortunately, they managed to throw the book at her that time, literally as well as figuratively. Frankly, after Heinous, and Toffee, and whatever that snake-thing Tom had sprung on them the other week was, Marco was not too scared of the old dizzy monster.

"Sure, fine," Princess Marco spoke defiantly. "Take me to your leader!" Truth be told, he always wanted to say that. "...and make sure the rest of the girls are there too! I think they are going to want to hear what I have to say to this 'Princess White' of yours."

It was soon clear he had no reason to worry about that. As they made their way through the manor's halls and passageways, the six of them seemed to accumulate an ever growing crowd of curious onlookers among the St. Olga's former students. Most of the princesses gave their supposed captor a wide berth. Jackie played the defiant hostage well, an arrogant scowl on 'his' princely face. Princess Marco marched right behind the trollish princess that held 'her' prince captive, he herself held her head tall and fists clenched. Ponyhead and Glintwisp seemed far more intimidated, marching a few steps behind Marco. Finally, Star brought the rear, just ahead of the accumulating spectators.

They passed more and more red-fist posters on their way up the manor.

THE REVOLUTION IS MORE IMPORTANT,  
THAN ANY INDIVIDUAL

"Embrace the princess mentality..." Star muttered under her breath.

\----

"So, that's it, Hekapoo, the whole truth, in as much as I myself know it," Moon admitted with a sigh. She took a seat at the edge of her bed, and prepared herself for the onslaught of fury that the sorceress was sure to unleash upon her. So be it. It would hardly be the first time she found herself on the receiving end of the other woman's displeasure, it came with the territory. It was the other side of the coin, the one Star didn't understand yet: having the power to make the big choices, but also having to live with the consequences. If it were up to Moon, her daughter would have been spared learning that lesson for a while longer. But, even as queen, it was not just up to her. 

"You could have told us this months ago," the Forger of Scissors noted calmly. She was looking out through the balcony of the royal bedchamber, giving her back to Moon, purposefully concealing her facial expression, rendering herself even more unreadable than usual. "You could have told me."

"Yes, Hekapoo, I could have," the queen admitted. She knew it was a mistake to not have brought the high commission in on this sooner, or at least the crafty sorceress in particular. But she had done what she did to protect Star, to protect her family from additional exposure. Fat good it had done, in the end. "I had it under control. I still do. Ludo has half the wand, he has the book, and he has Glossaryck. Admittedly, that is quite bad. But I assure you, even with all of that, he is hardly what I'd call a threat."

"He was enough of a threat to steal the book from your daughter, Moon. Enough of a threat to drain the magic from many worlds. Enough of a threat to go after Omnitraxus..." Hekapoo retorted. Her flame crackled and sizzled atop her head, betraying her displeasure at her old friend and confidant.

"We don't really know if those things truly are related," the mewman reasoned, evenly. "Frankly, it disturbs me to think they might be. Lord Brudo didn't give any indication that the young Avarius represented that kind of menace. He is not, well, you know..."

"Toffee?" Hekapoo completed the thought Queen Moon did not dare speak aloud. It was a name that brought far too many unpleasant memories: the death of her mother, her deal with Eclipsa, the weight of leadership, the coldness in her own heart as she drew forth power from darkness, and from ancient evil. Then again, in way, being reminded of that fiend, of that monster in every sense of the word, also helped remind Moon of what and who she was.

"Not even close!" she responded forcefully. "And must I remind you, Hekapoo, that I dealt with Toffee as well? Without assistance or advice from you, or from the high commission."

"With all due respect, Moon," Hekapoo turned back, glaring at her, "you dealt with Toffee by dabbling in dark magic, by bargaining with the Queen of Darkness herself! It is only by the sheerest luck that your way of 'dealing' with Toffee did not doom us all! What makes you think Star will be just as lucky, if it comes to it?"

"It wasn't luck, Hekapoo. I told you then, and I'll tell you now, I know what I am doing!" She didn't. Not now, and definitely not back then. She found the loophole in her deal with Eclipsa only in the last second. By failing to kill Toffee, she avoided having to fulfill her own end of the bargain with the imprisoned queen. Yet, had she hesitated only a second less, had she been a smidgen less or a smidgen more afraid, then Toffee would have died that morning by her hand. If he had, then Moon would have been left to deal with the consequences. "And... Star won't have to get lucky. I will deal with this myself, without dragging her into it, and do it right. I will protect her. You need to understand, there is no way she will ever have to... to deal with what I dealt with... when my mother..."

The cool warrior-queen mask crumbled then, the unbreakable armor of Moon the Undaunted, and for a second she was princess Moon again. Poor little orphan princess Moon. Tears fell down her eyes, tears only three people in her life had ever seen before. One was her husband, River. The other was Glossaryck, now missing. The final one was with her now, in this room. The fiery glare of the Forger softened as she walked back towards the Queen of Mewni.

"No, she won't, Moon. Because we will protect you. I will protect you," Hekapoo placed a hand on the monarch shoulder. "But you need to let me do that, and that means you don't hide the truth from me, or from the high commission."

"Yes, you are right Hekapoo," Moon finally admitted, in full. "It's just, it seemed like something we should be able to handle within the family. I didn't want to expose Star to, well, you know. Not this early. I suppose she manages to get into enough trouble on her own... That awful song! Now she probably thinks I am a monster, but what would you have me do?"

"The hardest thing, Moon," Hekapoo replied, somber, accepting the other woman's sudden change of topic. "Nothing."

"What?" the queen asked, not understanding.

"Let her and her friends deal with the consequences of what was in that song. Let them deal with the people of Mewnie if they must. You could have handled it when you were her age. Those kids can handle it too. You'd be shocked out of that hard royal skull of yours by what they can handle. Star is a strong kid, same as you were. What she can't handle, though, is a mother she believes disapproves of her every choice," the sorceress spoke with surprising insight, as she took as seat at the edge of the bed, right besides Moon.

It was ironic, the more she tried to shield her daughter from the harshness of the world, the more she herself became the face of that harshness. "Disapprove? What right do I have to disapprove? I just wish she were... a bit more thoughtful, and discrete, about the whole thing..."

"Well, that's your style, Moon. But it is not Star's. Don't worry, she will find her own way. It is not my style either, by the way, but a deal is a deal," Hekapoo remarked with a smile, right before she leaned forth to kiss the lips of her royal lover. In familiar warm lips, Moon found a measure of peace, after one of the toughest days she had had in a good long while.

\----

The only way to describe it, was to say that it was a throne room improvised out of a dining hall, or out of a very fancy school cafeteria. Each of the walls were lined with tables and chairs, pushed aside to make room for a ragged red carpet, which itself looked as if it had been ripped out from the floor of a separate room of the mansion. The carpet led to yet another table, atop which someone had affixed a sofa-chair and two normal wooden chairs. Of those, only the leftmost chair was empty. The walls were lined with some more of those disturbing, almost self-parodying, posters. All in all, it was much less impressive, and far more disturbing, than Mewnie castle's throne room. Or so thought Jackie, despite having been inside the later only briefly.

"Princess White! Glorious leader of the princess revolution! I bring you back the traitors, and the famed Princess Marco!" the bizarre woman that held her by the arm claimed, in a bored but practiced tone, and took a deep bow. Then, she extended the other arm, and with a quick movement took a picture of herself and of all the people behind her, including Marco, Star and Jackie, and a few dozen onlookers. "Ca-me-ra phone!"

The person sitting in the sofa chair, atop the table, raised an eyebrow, and silently regarded the presumptive captives. She was a slender goth-looking girl, seemingly not that much older than the three of them. She had long disheveled raven-black hair, skull-pale skin, and blood-red lips that easily twisted into a dangerous smirk. She wore an open spiked leather jacket and embroidered leather pants. Her top was a white blouse, with the now familiar fist-holding-a-crown symbol painted in red ink atop it. The crown in the symbol matched in design with the crown she wore atop her head, in bright shimmering silver. Hanging to the left side of her belt, glinted a wicked looking sword, with a skull atop the handle. 'Princess White, I presume', Jackie thought to herself.

"Princess Marco?" she spoke, bemusedly, and in a surprisingly melodious and inviting voice. "An honor, and a pleasure, for sure; to meet the foremother of our glorious revolution. Perhaps we could offer her and her two companions something to eat? Then we might bring her up to date with the progress the cause has made, in her, I assume quite explainable, absence?"

Dammit, whomever this girl was, she was a good public speaker. Jackie couldn't help but notice how she was both appearing to politely welcome Princess Marco, while at the same time casting doubts on the other princesses' minds about her. There was something more as well... wait, two companions? Jackie saw the goth princess surreptitiously make a gesture with her hand. Two other girls walked through the crowd towards them, throwing a muzzle and a bug net, respectively, on Pony Head and Glintwisp.

"Wait, what are they doing?!" Star protested in a surprised shout.

"Oh, surely Princess Marco would not be in any way associated with these traitors, now, would she?" the sitting princess smiled calmly.

"Of course they are with me!" Marco shouted. "Let them go. And, for the record, I think I have seen enough of your so called progress, thank you very much!"

Not precisely a master diplomat, thought Jackie, but he sure managed to pull off the defiant rebel leader role.

"Yeah, let my bestie go!" shouted Star, leveling her wand at the princess holding Ponyhead. Not wanting to be outdone, Jackie elbowed the huge princess holding her, and quickly moved to grab the other girl's bug net out of her hands.

To the side of the sofa-throne, in the one wooden chair that was occupied, a scrawny brunette of sharp features and piercing green eyes leaned to whisper something in White's ear. "Ah... I see. Princess Star, yet another honor!"

"Wait, you know who I am?" the Mewman asked, surprised. Presumably, she was talking about her disguise, but the dark-haired princess decided to interpret it quite differently.

"Of course. Your reputation precedes you," White stalled, attempting to distract them from their friends being dragged around. Only when she saw that further attempts would likely result in an all out brawl, she quietly gave the signal to her cronies to let go. Even then, that barely registered in her polite conversational tone. "Frankly, it is a miracle you did not end up among us, here in St. O's. Or a shame, as the case might be. You would be such an asset for our revolution..."

"A revolution against whom, exactly?" Princess Marco interrupted. "Way I see it, Heinous was gone, the girls were free to embrace their individuality, then you came along and this is now what? A princess Soviet Union?"

"I am unfamiliar with that kingdom," White replied, calmly. "As for against whom... well, against our oppressors, of course! Same fight you started, sister. Sure, you helped our sisters get rid of Heinous. Although, from what I have heard recently, you didn't do as... permanent a job as I would have in your place..."

Permanent? Was she suggesting that Marco ought to have killed their former headmistress? The savage grin and the way White's hand drifted towards the pommel of her sword, told Jackie the answer. Now, that miss Heinous did sound like a horrid character, but surely that was taking it a step too far. Then again, if she had to judge this whole thing by the standards of actual revolutions...

"In any case, Heinous was nothing but a lackey of the true oppressors!" White voice swiftly rose into a booming tone. "The ones who sent these princesses here, to be brainwashed, to be enslaved to their lineages and to their subjects! Who are they to tell us who we should be?! What we should do?! I say we pay them back! No longer shall any princess be beholden to the whims of her line or her kingdom!"

"Yeah!" shouted Star, as did many other princesses among the crowd. Most of the observers, however, wisely kept silent. Then the Mewman's princess expression seemed to change, as she realized to what she was agreeing exactly. "Wait, no! You cannot mean that we should... hurt our parents?"

"No, of course not," White's face softened. "Not your parents, princess Star. Like I said, your reputation as a rebel, as one of us, does you great honor. But I will admit that your parents, whatever their faults might be, never sent you to a place like St. O's. However... the parents of these girls did do just that! They willingly subjected their kids to imprisonment and brainwashing! If that doesn't make them, and their entire kingdoms, evil, if that doesn't make them worthy of being overthrown, then what does?!"

"Look," Marco raised a hand. Standing on the floor, as the other princess straightened herself atop her throne, he looked much feebler by comparison. Jackie figured that was entirely intentional on White's part, it was probably the whole point of setting up this makeshift royal hall in the first place. "I am not saying that it is right to send anyone to a place like what this used to be. But I don't think these girls' parents are expecting their daughters to be brainwashed. They think this is a place to teach them the skills that they need, to be good rulers..."

"There is only one skill necessary to rule," the goth princess smirked. "Strength! And together, we have strength in abundance!"

"No," Princess Marco asserted herself, not willing to let that one slide. And Jackie felt no small degree of admiration for her frilly-dressed boyfriend. "Ruling through strength only makes you a tyrant, or a dictator. Look, I am not saying each princess shouldn't be free to be themselves, to be who they truly are, each and every one of our wayward sisters. They should be free to use their gifts to be the best versions of themselves instead of a cookie-cutter extension of their respective royal families. But when they rule, and they rule their way, they should still be doing what is right for their people! If you use strength to intimidate and cow others into submission, then that makes you the oppressors!" Princess Marco paused her speech, and Jackie noticed a few murmurs of agreement within the gathered crowd. "Besides, are you truly suggesting that these girls kill their own parents?"

"Why not?" White retorted. "After all, I killed my mother!"

More murmurs. Star gasped. She suddenly looked pale, and horrified. Even Jackie felt sick to her stomach, and she was neither a princess, nor had ever been caught agreeing with the lunatic in question.

"So yes, strength, and resolve, are all that stands between each and everyone of us and complete freedom and independence, the kind that only comes with power," she continued. "I would know. I now rule my kingdom, and I do so entirely my way, without lineages or tradition. Without being beholden to anyone but myself!"

"And I assume your people love you for it?" retorted Marco, sarcastically.

"Absolutely," the other princess responded with a smile. "You see, my mother was an evil queen."

"Then I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Princess Marco quipped.

Suddenly, the sitting princess jumped out of her throne, her hands gripping the sofa's armrests until they broke under the pressure into a shower of splinters. Her eyes were wide open and her teeth clenched in a furious rictus. "What. Did. You! Just! Say?!" Her previous composure had gone in an instant, and she seemed to barely keep enough self control not to jump down from the table and charge against Marco.

At first, Jackie thought White simply resented the comparison to her mother. But then it hit her. It wasn't just being compared to her mother that bothered Princess White. It was the saying itself! Rather, it had been a single word in the saying: apple. She had reacted as soon as that word was mentioned. Everything seemed to fall into place all at once then for the Earth girl: 'My mother was an evil queen'. Apple. Princess White. Coal-black hair, blood-red lips, skin as white as snow... "Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me! Marco, I think you are debating Snow White!"

The goth blinked twice, and seemed to calm down, momentarily. "I haven't been called by that name in a very long time... you are?"

"Prince," she thought for a second, "Jack. Jack as in the giant killer." She spoke with the utmost bravado, or at least all she could muster. Then, mentally, she added, 'and if you believe that, I also have a bag of magic beans to sell you'.

"Well, princess Marco, prince... Jack," Snow White spat the name, "I see my arguments fall on deaf ears. So I propose we put our ideals to a test, a trial on the morrow!" She smiled wickedly. A wicked queen smile, thought Jackie. "Cass, tell me this, and only this, will our dear Princess Marco once again flee from us unseen during the night?"

The green eyes of the woman sitting besides White turned her piercing gaze towards Marco, as she seemed to concentrate. "She will stay," she answered simply.

"Of course! I will debate you any day you want, sister!" Princess Marco quickly retorted. Jackie, however, smelled a rat.

"It is set, then," Snow White proclaimed, "tomorrow at dawn. A trial by combat!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The original Chapter 13 was almost twice as long as it is now. Based on previous experiences with long chapters, I have decided to break it up into two parts. Unfortunately, this means that while the plot moves forward, the situation between Star and Marco remains unresolved.
> 
> Now, some people might say that I had plenty enough time to resolve it in this chapter, had I not thrown gratuitous Moonkapoo at you all and introduced that ridiculous evil Snow White fellow. But to those people I say: Where would be the fun in that? ;)
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 14: A Thunderstorm Roaring Through the Night_  
>  _In which 'no boys allowed' backfires terribly, a letter arrives, and a plan to fight an evil princess is conceived._


	14. A Thunderstorm Roaring Through the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which 'no boys allowed' backfires terribly, a letter arrives, and a plan to fight an evil princess is conceived.

## Chapter 14: A Thunderstorm Roaring Through the Night

> She's a thunderstorm roaring through the night  
>  She's our shooting Star, and she's lighting up the sky!  
>  \- The Songstrel Ruberiot (both continuities)  
> 

After Princess White's latest proclamation, the five of them were quickly escorted to three separate rooms within the mansion. Ponyhead and Glintwisp were locked in together, as were Marco and Star. Jackie was shuffled into her own room, in what the princess of Mewnie suspected was an ironic attempt at enforcing some bizarre 'no boys allowed' rule. If you asked her, that was closer to Heinous' way of thinking than that of a true rebel princess, specially the party princesses of St. O's. But it seemed that, for all her talk about fighting oppressors, Saint Olga's under White's leadership was even more oppressive than it had ever been before. Was that even possible? How was it possible?

Anyways, that all didn't matter, because there were two things right now that seemed more important to Star Butterfly than the future of St. O's princess' rebellion. The first was that, come tomorrow, Marco was supposed to fight some crazy mother-killing princess from hell. And, well, is not like Star doubted her bestie's fighting skills - which were, like, totally super awesome - but she had never seen him fight with a sword, much less in a formal duel. She was sure White would declare herself the challenged party, despite calling for the trial, simply because it was Princess Marco coming into her... kingdom? dominion? or, like, her little fiefdom? As opposed to vice versa. So, Star needed to advice Marco both on sword fighting, and on royal dueling norms, and is not like she ever had paid much attention to either of those things herself!

Then, of course, there was the second thing. The part that made her sad to room with her best friend in the whole multiverse, with her... was he even still her boyfriend? The question itself made her chest hurt and her stomach twist like she needed to puke. It was the question that she had been trying to ignore the whole night. The part where Marco maybe hated her now for being a manipulative skank!

They waited there, in long uncomfortable silence, standing at the entrance of a somberly decorated room that was twice the size of Marco's, yet smaller than Star's own. Neither of them quite able to bring themselves to be the first to speak.

"Star, we need to talk," Marco offered. He walked in and sat on the jacobean chair, by the mirror, leaving Star to take over the huge bed in the middle.

She barely noticed the furnishings herself. Marco loved this old-fashioned overly-ornamented royal crap that was all over the place in St. O's. Honestly, she liked Earth furniture way better. There was even some you could assemble and disassemble, without using magic! How cool was that? But, yeah, not the time for thinking about cool things. Rather, it was the time to finally face the music, as it were. Or maybe, maybe she didn't even have the time for that.

"We don't, Marco," she spoke. "If I hurt you, then I am sorry, and if you hate me... well... nevermind, my point is that tomorrow's duel is what we should be talking about. A duel is not just like a regular brawl, Marco. In this case, I think it might be way more dangerous, like not fun-dangerous, dangerous-dangerous," she tried to explain, but he cut her off.

"No, Star, all the more reason we need to talk. If tomorrow I am going to get skewered by a fairytale character turned twentieth century dictator, then there is something I need to tell you first! I've been thinking about it all night..." He looked up at her, pausing as if he still couldn't find the words to say what he had decided to say.

"You can say it tomorrow, Marco!" Star protested, tearing up a little. She didn't want to hear it. She knew whatever the specific reason Marco was angry at her, no matter how valid, it would shatter her, and she needed to be whole right now, for his own good if nothing else. "Look, just let me make sure you come out of this thing alright. You can hate me all you like after we deal with this Princess White stuff, ok?" 

"No! We can't do that, because you got it all wrong! Please, just listen for a second." He took a deep breath and crossed one leg atop another underneath his princess dress. "First of all, Star, I don't hate you, and you didn't hurt me. I am really sorry I caused you to think that was the case. Apparently even now I keep messing this stuff up! It is just, I didn't know, or I don't know, how to begin... I guess the first thing I should have said, actually, is that it's me that needs to apologize, so, well: I am sorry, Star."

"Wait, what?!" He was making no sense. What would Marco have to apologize for? "But then, why did you seem so angry earlier? About me not telling you about Tom?"

"Star, I already told you, I don't give an opossums' ass about Tom!" Marco shouted. "And, I was angry at myself, alright? At being so stupid! At ignoring the way my best friend felt! Why didn't you tell me, Star? Why didn't you tell me that I was making you miserable when I began dating Jackie?!"

"Uh?" Star thought back to their conversation earlier that same night. Had Marco ever truly said he was angry at her, or had she just assumed he was? Then again, he truly had nothing to apologize for, other than perhaps being a misleading idiot just now! "Marco, you were not making me miserable, ok? I was happy that you were dating Jackie, because it made you happy. And ok, so I was a bit jealous of her, and a bit worried that you didn't like me the way you liked her. But well, surprise, you sort of did! It is pretty much the one thing Ruberiot got right with his stupid song: that story did have a happy ending! At least until earlier tonight..."

"I did like you! I do like you! Is just, I am ashamed it took me so long to realize it, Star," Marco blushed, and shifted her, his, ponytail, uncomfortably. Honestly, it was kind of adorable. "I am sorry if I hurt you by being so oblivious!"

"Marco, I was fooling even myself back then about how I felt, so of course I fooled you too!" she reasoned. "Anyways, suppose I had told you then, what would you have done? Dumped Jackie for me?"

Marco fell silent, and they stared at each other for what seemed like forever.

"I am such an asshole," he said, simply. Because he wouldn't have? Or because he would? He didn't say, and Star did not press him on that. For once, she managed to keep her own impulsiveness from making her do something she knew she would later regret.

"Marco, I know assholes, ok?" she grimaced, recalling a certain demon ex-boyfriend. "You really, really, aren't one. And hopefully you don't think I am one either..."

The Earth boy, St. O's rebel princess, her bestie, got off his chair and walked towards Star. He was crying and smiling at once, and so was she. He extended his arms and was about to lean down towards the bed, when Star jumped to meet him. 

"Hugs!" she cried. Suddenly, things between them felt right again. He was her boyfriend, and her best friend. He cared about her so much that the thought of having made her miserable, even if it was basically by failing to read her mind, was the one thing that disturbed him the most about that entire gross messed-up song. Tom didn't matter to him, and the reaction of the people of Mewnie didn't matter to him, so why should those matter to Star? If it ever came to that, she would find a way to get the citizens of Mewni to accept Marco and her, and Jackie too, for that matter. Whether she had to bend tradition to do so, or re-invent it, they would find a way, together.

As they embraced, a flash of inspiration hit her. "Wait, I got it! You don't really have to fight Princess White tomorrow!"

"I don't?" Marco asked, visibly taken aback by the magical princess' rapid change of tracks.

"No," she reassured him. "I just remembered! From my lessons. Guess I wasn't always asleep! Traditionally, under most kingdoms dueling standards, you can designate a proxy to fight for you. Which means... that I can take care of the problem for you!" She made a swift wand-shooting motion, with her non-wand hand just in case.

"Wait, Star, didn't you say that was dangerous?" he reminded her. 

Thing was, he wasn't wrong. If the other princess' weapon of choice was swords, then that banned magic wands, and what were the chances Snow White would chose wands? Well, if worst came to worst, she could dip down and blast her, with or without a wand. Then again, she reminded herself, doing that required a moment of concentration she might not get right in the middle of a fight. At any rate, Star was much more comfortable with it being dangerous for her, than for Marco.

"Oh, Marco, don't worry, I can handle a little danger!" she put her best smile forward. She was not exactly the best princess to spot you in a formal duel, but Star was sure she would do much better than 'Princess Marco' could, no matter how cute he looked in a dress. Speaking of which, "For now, less worrying, more smooching!"

Star turned the two of them around and pushed her boyfriend onto the bed, climbing atop him as she pressed her lips, and her torso, firmly against his own. A growing bulge between the folds of his pink dress told the true princess that, at least as it pertained to her 'no boys allowed' plan, Princess White had already been foiled.

"Wait, Star, just for the record: I haven't agreed. I am still fighting tomorrow!" he protested. "I got us into this whole mess, remember?"

"Oh, really?" Star grinned at him as she cocked her head. "Tell you what, Marco. You show me you can wrestle me here tonight, and I'll consider letting you fight other princesses," she joked. "Besides, I got us into this mess first!"

"Wrestle you, Star?" the karate boy raised an eyebrow. The mewman girl grabbed his wrists pushing him down, kissing him fiercely. The look in his eyes told her he got the idea. "Mmm, Star, not to rain on that particular parade, but I don't think there is any connection between a formal duel and, well, this."

"Well, I dunno Marco, they both involve some... 'sword play'" she wiggled herself atop him suggestively and chuckled. Marco groaned at her pun, but soon his groans became panting, and acquired a whole different meaning. Star herself felt her own excitement build up. There was something about the whole situation, and their respective costumes, that made her feel so, so, wicked. Tomorrow she would face Snow White, no matter what Marco said, but for now, she herself was going to be the bad princess.

"Star, wrestling doesn't involve swords..." Marco remarked. Before the princess could finish thinking of a retort, mentioning how much of a spoilsport the 'Safe Kid' was being, she felt his arms slid from under her hands and grab her own wrists in return. With a quick movement, he flipped her over, and before she knew it the positions were reversed, "... it involves grappling moves."

From his position straddling her, he bowed and placed his right fist on his left palm. Star was about to protest that that wasn't wrestling either, but his lips quickly shut up her own. She felt his hands slid around her shoulders, removing the two suspender straps of her costume. He was doing something else with them. Something that Star couldn't focus on, because his arms kept softly brushing against her mewberty wings, and his hips kept grinding on hers as both their skirts hiked higher and higher up. Soon she could feel his 'sword' poking her through only the fabric of their underwear.

A moment later, she remembered their playful competition, and moved to pounce Marco back on his back, reversing their positions. Except, it turns out she wasn't able to do that. In fact, Star discovered, she couldn't move her arms from behind her at all, even as Marco's hands let go of them to concentrate on caressing her breasts through the black top of her costume. She gasped and moaned in pleasure, and it took her a second to realize what the boy had done just a moment before. Both her arms were tied against her back using her own suspenders. "Hey, that's playing dirty!" she shouted.

"It's called strategy, Star," he smiled at her, a smug Princess Marco smile. "So, do I win? Do I get to fight White tomorrow?"

"Sure, sure, Marco," she groaned. Maybe she would regret giving in so easily later. But what could she do? If nothing else, Marco was resourceful, and if he wanted to fight, then who was she to stop him? She had told him once that she needed a friend, not a hero, perhaps that was true in reverse as well. "Just... well... finish the job, alright?"

"Gladly," Marco remarked. Star didn't know if it was just a matter of having significantly more practice, or if the Princess Marco persona made her bestie more confident, even in such a bizarre context, but he seemed so much more sure of himself than usual. She liked it. She liked it a lot. He was not being a cocky asshole like Tom, or suave dancer-trance Marco, he was being her bestie, just, you know, bolder! He roamed his lips along her neck, suckling and kissing. He moved his hands along the edge of her wings, and dipped into her top to trace circles around her nipples.

Star felt herself getting hotter and hotter, and she could feel the boys own excitement without even needing to concentrate. She knew, through their mysterious link, that he found the idea of her being bound and vulnerable just as exciting as she found the idea of him being bold and in control. She could perceive that he indeed felt powerful in pink, and that he was reluctant to do away with either of their costumes. "Just push it aside," she suggested.

He understood and did as she asked. A hand went in between their skirts, and pushed aside their underwear. Star felt Marco's cock slide into her through the mess of fabrics and begin to move inside her. She felt an instinct to embrace him as he begun fucking her rhythmically, but was quickly reminded of her immobility by the tight grasp of the leather straps around her wrists. Her brief struggle excited them both even more.

As he picked up pace, their sensations once again blended together. She could feel herself around him as much as himself inside of her, both perspectives becoming one and the same as he rode her towards climax. Realizing she could still move her legs, she lifted them to embrace his, pushing him deeper inside her. Her vision became a series of flashes, half from his perspective, half from hers. She could see both their panting sweating faces as the other saw them, hear their moans and grunts from either side.

A flash of green and she was Marco, feeling rebellious and in control, and at once more like a girl and more like a guy than he had ever felt before. A flash of green and she was Star, getting lost in the sensations, happy to be completely at the mercy of the one person she trusted the most in the whole world, excited to feel him inside her after having feared she would lose him. A flash of green and she was up in the air above the forest of certain death, flying at vertiginous speed towards the center of Mewni.

Before she could analyze that last scene, her mind went blank completely, as the powerful wave of both their orgasms hit her, not quite simultaneously this time, but in quick succession. She felt him pulsating and pumping into her even as she rode a long climax. All the muscles in her body tensed at once, and then became incredibly relaxed. Marco fell by her side and, summoning whatever strength he had left, he undid the knotted straps holding her arms in place. As soon as she could, she turned to hug him.

"Well, Marco, guess it was not the best idea to get you this tired the night before your big fight," Star observed, conceding the point that started the whole wonderful struggle.

"I will be alright, Star. We are still like, what? Four hours away from dawn?! Oh, man..." Marco grimaced. "Well, Star, just promise me what we did just now won't end up as a song," he joked.

Star punched him in the arm. "No more songs! Not now, not ever!" she declared. "But, Marco, are you sure you are ok with, well, with all of that?"

"If you are ok with it, Star, then so I am," Marco shrugged in response. "Although, if you have any other shocking revelations I should be aware of, now would be a great time to bring those up. You know, when there is not an entire kingdom for an audience..."

Star though back to their mysterious link, to the flashes she had just seen. Why had she seen Mewni, and the forest of certain death, of all places? She considered, for a second, to tell Marco about the visions, but that would require mentioning the All-Seeing Eye spell, and that was an explanation she still didn't want to get into, not now, and hopefully not ever.

"What? Marco, don't be silly! That was all of it, I swear it, all of the shocking revelations. No more secrets, I promise!" she blurted, after a while. The boy in the pink dress arched an eyebrow at her, in clear disbelief. She forced a nervous smile. 

"You know what, Star, never mind, I'll learn them when I learn them. I guess that's the thing about being your best friend, or your boyfriend, it is always going to be a surprise after another, and I wouldn't have it any other way," he smiled a relaxed smile at her. "Lets sleep now. We have a fairytale dictator to overturn tomorrow."

\----

Tom looked up from the stash of envelopes on his hands, pausing to observe Janna's focused movements. She sat on the floor of his room, in the lotus position, waving her arms in intricate patterns around the flickering ball of ghostly blue flames that floated in front of her. She had her eyes closed. Could she see them, then? The dead souls swarming around them, circling her sitting body as she drew from their power? The demon prince was sure she could not see them with her eyes open. Humans, as a rule, could not. But perhaps she already could sense them in her mind eye.

It wasn't as if she was consuming souls to power her sorcery, not even close. The power required to permanently destroy a true soul was enormous, as was the arcane energy liberated in the process. But she was attracting them to her, and sipping away some of the remaining life-force of the long deceased, little by little spinning it into her phantasmal yarn of flames. It figures that the damned girl would have an affinity for the energies of the underworld, rather than those of her own dimension.

He brought his focus back to the letters, as he sat quietly on his sofa, wary of interrupting the apprentice witch. Bills ('To: Tom Lucitor, One Lucitor Palace, #666'), petitions from mortals seeking favors from dark powers ('To: His Grace, Tom Lucitor, Dark Prince Most Unhallowed'), and more junk mail that you could even imagine ('To: Whomever it might reach'). To hell with advertisers! Actually no, that they were all down here was the problem in the first place.

"Tom, catch!" yelled Janna, as she let go of her fiery hex in his general direction, probably seeking to startle him. The demon smiled a single-fanged smile, and caught the fireball in his hand with ease. He closed his fist around it, holding on to it, took a stack of letters with his other hand and slowly burned them into the flame, before extinguishing the blue orb with his palm.

"Cool," he remarked evenly. "That's some pretty good progress, Janna."

"Is way too slow," she retorted, unconvinced. "Come on, Tom, the other way is faster, and way more enjoyable!"

She gave him a seductive wink, and vulgarly roamed her hands around the curves of her small breasts. The demon prince raised an eyebrow in return.

"Janna, last time we got lucky," no pun intended. "It was like being a lightning rod. The only reason you didn't hurt yourself is that you fired off the power as soon as you got it. I am pretty sure you don't want to take a risk like that again."

He sighed and directed his attention elsewhere, away from the teasing mortal. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a black envelope, labeled simply 'To: Tom, From: Sam'. A familiar feeling of dread nested itself in the back of the demon prince's skull. Despite the simple informal addressing, the letter was sealed in blood red wax, displaying the flaming blade and pentagram symbol that the young prince knew only too well.

"So," Janna's words took him out of his contemplation, "you are saying you are going to have me here for three days and not fuck me, Tom?" She mock-pouted.

"I said no such thing," he grinned, devilishly, "just that we might have to exercise a bit more self control than that night, unless you literally can't get off without me going full agro," he teased her back. "Speaking of which, I can't believe your parents let you stay in here for three days. I mean it. I literally did not believe you when you told me they were ok with this, Janna."

"Eh, fair enough. I told them I was going to be staying with Ingrid," she shrugged. "Do you really care?"

"Lying is not nice, Janna," he noted, with a sarcastic smirk. He was neither surprised, nor disappointed, of course. The human girl was a rebel, and that's probably a big part of why he enjoyed being with her. As soon as the thought was formed, he realized, to his annoyance, that it meant he had a type.

"Oh, right, like I have never lied to my parents before," she chuckled. "Besides, what am I going to tell them? That I plan to spend the entire weekend in bed with the devil?"

The devil, eh? Tom's eyes fell back into the black envelope. It wasn't just black, it was dark enough that it sucked in the light around it, permanently casting a bubble of shadows on itself even as he waved it closer to the candle flame. Chances were, it would not burn either, not to worldly fire. Knowing Sam, it was made of something like the darkness from the deepest depths of creation. Or maybe from a piece of the fabric of the firmament, taken before the first stars were placed there. Janna thought she was getting in bed with the devil by dating him, she didn't know what the literal hell she was talking about.

"Tom, what's that?" she startled him. In his contemplation, he didn't realize when she had gotten up and walked towards him. Now she was looking right over his shoulder. "Letter from an old girlfriend?"

"From an old friend of the family. Party invitation, I think," he added, waving his hand dismissively. It probably was. One that Tom planned to decline. Blood Moon Balls were one thing, but Sam's little soirees always turned out way more intense than he found, well, tolerable, really.

\----

Marco woke up to an intermittent knocking sound. He slowly opened his groggy eyes to see an unfamiliar, yet sumptuous, bed canopy above him. The mattress felt incredibly soft, fine silk sheets too, and the room had just a hint of the perfume of pine-wood that rose up with the morning. Oh, right, St. Olga's! Heinous might have been a horrible principal, but she was an amazing interior decorator.

He heard knocking once more, and tried to get up to answer the door. Unfortunately, something was pressing against his chin: Star's... foot? Man, he had expected to wake up to her embracing him, or maybe vice versa. But not to her splayed all around him, snoring as she hugged a pillow at the base of the bed instead. He smiled. He should have known better.

"Marco? Star?" he heard Jackie's voice, accompanying another set of knocks. "You two decent?"

To his surprise, the knocks came from the opposite end of the room he would have expected, away from the door. He rushed up, adjusted his ponytail and his dress. Oh man, he could do with a shower right now. Never mind that! He hurried up to the window, opened the curtains, and flipped the lock. Jackie pushed the left panel open and slid in a swift parkour movement. Outside, the light of dawn was barely visible in the horizon, but a thick fog seemed to rise with the morning.

"Jackie, what are you doing out there?" Marco asked, surprised. "We are on a third floor! You could have hurt yourself!"

"Please, Marco," Jackie snorted, "with the amount of ledges, gargoyles, and random protrusions this old house's got, Ferguson could have climbed between the rooms, probably while carrying miss Skullnick or something," she observed, playing it off.

"Oh, hey Jackie!" Star, suddenly wide awake and chirp as a morning dove, greeted the other girl. "Wait, if you could have gone out of your room through the window at any time, why not come here last night?"

Jackie leaned against the wall. "Well, seemed like you had some stuff to work out on your own last night. I didn't want to intrude," she remarked. "By the looks of it, I'd said you did work it out?"

Marco blushed. Had Jackie heard them too? I mean, if she was right the next room... Star and he hadn't precisely been discreet. Then again, what if anyone else heard them? Was Princess Marco about to be outed to the princesses of St. O's as a raging lesbian?

"Aww, Jackie, thanks!" Star's voice interrupted Marco's mental tangent. "Ok, alright now, enough chit-chat, we have a tyrant to fight!"

"Oh, right," Marco grumbled. He felt so tired after last night. It was one thing to discuss morning duels in the abstract, a different one to wake up at the crack of dawn to fight a psychopathic rebel princess. Why did nobody ever schedule this damn things for mid-afternoon?

"I mean, if you are sure you are up for it, Marco?" Star asked, seeming to notice her best friend's torpor. "If not, you know I can always tag in. Not that I don't trust your fighting prowess if you still want to take White on yourself, though..."

"Wait," Jackie asked, inquisitively, "you mean it doesn't have to be Marco that fights her?"

"No," Star responded proudly, "Under the fifth trans-dimensional code of chivalry and gallant conduct, on which Mewni's own rules are based, any party to a trial by combat might designate a proxy, who may fight on their stead, if willing." She recited, with surprising eloquence, given what Marco knew about her grades.

"Ok, then I'll do it!" Jackie offered, almost excitedly.

"Wait, no!" Marco protested. No way he was going to let either of them fight his battles. "I mean, ok, I am a bit tired right now. But nothing that the adrenaline won't solve. I have been in morning fights before at the dojo and..."

"Marco," Jackie stopped him with a hand raised. "It is not just that I am the most well rested of the three of us, which I am. Is that I want to do this. To take on the adventure head on, like you two do, not just being here for the ride, ok?"

"I am not sure, Jackie," Star interjected. "Duels are pretty serious matters. There is no way to back down once the fight starts, or get outside help without breaking the rules. And, besides, that Princess White seems pretty vicious. I think is better if you let me or Marco handle this one, and we can definitely spot you on a simpler first time adventure, like punching monsters, or maybe even a small hydra! You know, baby steps..."

"I see," Jackie appeared to ponder. Marco knew that look. "So, Star, question: what kind of weapons are permitted in a duel?"

"Weeell," the princess started, "the challenged party picks, usually, and that would be White in this case, I think. I am not sure."

"Ok, and White was carrying a sword last night," Jackie observed, logically, "Star, Marco, do either of you know how to fight with a sword?"

Marco groaned. Of course Jackie knew the answer already.

"Well, not very well," Star conceded, "I can swing around a bunch of weapons, but I usually use my wand, and before I got it I mostly punched stuff."

"Well, I have four years of fencing lessons as a kid, and a couple of weeks as a refresher, Star," Jackie noted. "Not going to say I am a master duelist, but out of the three of us, I am still our best sword fighter."

"Jackie, fencing is not the same as dueling, and you are not as, well, resistant as I would be," Star remarked, apparently trying her best to be polite about the differences between human and mewman fortitude and constitution. "Unless... Wait! Jackie, this could work!"

"What could work?" Marco asked, worried about Star sudden swing towards the other girl's case.

"Well, traditionally, the Queen of Mewnie would use the Royal Magic Wand to empower the kingdom's soldiers," she explained. "To fight against the evil monster hordes and stuff... except they weren't actually always evil, but that's another story and well..."

"Wait," Jackie interrupted. "You mean the whole Mewnipendance Day stuff? The huge armor suits and weapons?"

"Yes!" Star shouted excitedly. "Except, I think I can make those way more discreet at this point. Unpierceable magic shield over your whole body, magically empowered strength and reflexes, enchanted sword," she listed with her fingers. "You won't be in any risk at all, White won't know what hit her, and you get your first taste of ad-ven-ture! Ok, lets do this Jackie!"

"I dunno, Star," Jackie remarked, "isn't that kinda cheating?"

"Not really," Star retorted. "The rules are that I can't intervene during the duel, and you can only bring a sword as weapon. Magic cast before duels is actually pretty common... I think."

"Fair enough," Jackie shrugged. "Ok, buff me up, Butterfly!"

"Wait a second!" Marco shouted, angrily. "I didn't say I would let Jackie fight for me. The whole magic empowering stuff is fine by me, but I should be the one to fight!"

"Why?" Jackie asked, raising an eyebrow, and Marco knew he wasn't winning this one either. But he had to try.

"Because she challenged me!"

"And you can pick a proxy, so pick me."

"But I got us into this in the first place!"

"No, that would be Horse Head."

"But I am the..."

"... guy?" Jackie completed his sentence. She, in her princely outfit, looked up and down at Princess Marco, her chin resting on a globed hand. "Marco, first, that's kinda sexist. Two, if that's the standard, then all the more reason I should be the one defending the honor of my princess, no?"

Marco had no retort, none that could help him win the argument.

"Come on, dude," Jackie smiled at him. "I can do this. I want to do this. I am the best suited one, and with Star's magic it should be a piece of cake. Trust me, ok?"

\----

A knock on her door woke up Queen Moon. Tiredly, she opened her eyes, noticing that no light of dawn filtered yet through the curtains. She rose to her feet, closed her nightgown and opened the door just enough to see who it was that woke her up at this time. "River, dear? Since when do you knock on your own room?"

"Well darling," the king rubbed the back of his head nervously. "It's just, well, it's been a while since you two... I just thought I'd give you space for the night."

Moon the Undaunted blushed at her husbands comment, and at the recollections of the night before, which suddenly flooded her drowsy memory. Then, from behind her, came a snore, followed by a chuckle. "Mightily appreciated, King River," quipped Hekapoo, from inside the room.

"Sorry, dear," Moon apologized, "I know this is all terribly unfair to you..."

"Nonsense," her husband cut her off. "Fair or unfair doesn't come into it, I knew of you two back when I married you, and I am rather fond of old Hekapoo anyways. Besides, I relish a good night of independence!"

"I, I will make it up to you, River, I promise," Moon said with a smile.

"You more than make it up, darling, just by being you," the king commented. 

"You two are truly a fountain of sap," groaned the sorceress. "But, if you have waited till now, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, why not wait until the morning? Or maybe noon?"

"Actually," River coughed. "Moon, I am sorry to wake you but, it seems like you are required. The... well, the songstrel, he says he needs to see you, and that is urgent. The chap seemed rather terrified too, I swear I didn't even get to rough him up myself!"

Queen Moon simply nodded in acknowledgement. Moments later she was fully dressed and walking down the stairs beside her husband. At the end, in the Mewni royal throne room, were a dozen or so guards and a stunned half-panicking Ruberiot.

"Queen Moon! My queen! I came to warn you, there is a dark and terrible storm brewing over the entire kingdom!" he shouted, as soon as he saw her. Truly, he was the last of her subjects Moon Butterfly wished to speak with right now, specially after the night's shameful performance!

"After that song of yours, it doesn't surprise me people are in a bad mood," she commented evenhandedly. Then, doing her best to conceal her boiling anger, letting only a hint of polite disapproval filter through, she added "to tell the truth, I am not fully pleased with it myself, master songstrel."

"No, my queen," Ruberiot shook his head and pointed terrified at the large balcony podium. "I am not being poetic, I mean a literal dark and terrible storm!"

"On June? In Mewni?" the queen asked puzzled, but directed her view out into the night all the same. She saw indeed a starless sky, covered by dark thunderstorm clouds. The lightning that crisscrossed them, however, was of a most unnatural emerald color.

Before she could figure out an appropriate comment, a bright flash exploded at the center of the storm and a green fiery meteor sprung forth from above the sky. It lunged directly towards the royal palace, leaving an ominous hole on the clouds in its wake. Moon, well acquainted with the significance of certain magical phenomena, couldn't help but notice that even the sky behind the clouds was empty of any of the usual celestial bodies of the night. "River, get my armor, and wake Hekapoo! Guards sound the alarm!"

The meteor impacted the castle balcony, with surprisingly little effect for its size, other than a blinding viridescent flash and a splashing of emerald fire. As Moon's eyes adjusted to the sudden illumination, she thought she could see the outline of a woman's body through the green flames that begun to burn on the balcony's floor. 

"Who are you? In the name of Moon the Undaunted, Queen of Mewni, identify yourself!" she shouted at the intruder.

The inhuman voice that came back through the glass window chilled her to the bone.

"I am love, all-conquering"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The perfect Princess Moon  
> She's nice in every way  
> Always in a sunny mood  
> Even on the cloudy days
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 15: To Keep the Peace, We Will Play the Game_  
>  _In which we finish our look into the past, present, and future, of Moon the Undaunted._


	15. To Keep the Peace, We Will Play the Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we finish our look into the past, present, and future, of Moon the Undaunted

## Chapter 15: To Keep the Peace, We Will Play the Game

> To keep the peace, we will play the game  
>  Royal secret from royal shame  
>  \- The Songstrell Ruberiot (original continuity)  
> 

"I will hunt down the remains of the monster army, and scatter them, without country or leadership," had spoken Moon the Undaunted. Moon the Lizard-vanquisher. Moon the Mighty Warrior Queen of Mewni. Moon the God-damned Fool! 

Turns out that, unlike breaking The General's siege in the first place, hunting down a disbanding army of various non-human monsters involved a lot less brave proclamations and regal last stands than one might imagine. What it did involve, however, were way too many months-long tracking expeditions through the most recondite wastelands that Mewni and the surrounding lands had to offer: scorching desert after damned scorching desert, barren tundra after miserable barren tundra, icky swamp after bloody icky swamp! They were lizards, for Selena's sake! Of course they all went into hiding in swamps. No, not near swamps, or around swamps, in them! As in: inside the yucky leach-infested waters. And where they hid, Moon the Undaunted, Queen of Mewni, had to follow.

It was not like she could just send the royal knights, either, and use her time to focus on administering and rebuilding her kingdom. Even though she certainly had a better brain for that than half of the damned royal council. Her best friend, and ambiguous sweetheart, River, stayed on her behalf, as the queen's chosen representative. He did so, even though he hated the bureaucracy as much as she welcomed it, and would have been much happier than her pursuing Toffee's former goons across the land.

But, no, young Queen Moon had to go on every single hunt herself, which meant leaving someone she trusted behind. The lizards did not run from the knights of Mewni, and they certainly did not run from River Johansen, they ran from her! A seventeen year old awkward girl in ill fitting plate armor, who could barely drag around her two longswords, much less swing them at them with any degree of precision. But she had the magic wand, and she had the spell that could kill them permanently; the power which would break that which couldn't be broken. Never mind that she did not plan to use Eclipsa's dark powers ever again in her life. As long as the monsters didn't know that, she could make them flee by her mere presence.

She had to admit that she sometimes enjoyed her newly found reputation as a powerful warrior and no-nonsense queen. She certainly liked that more than the 'perfect little princess' facade she had been forced to take on all those years prior. But either was as much a fiction as the other, and in the end, the only thing she was, behind it all, was Moon. Not Queen Moon of Mewni. Not Moon the Undaunted. Just, you know, Moon. Right now, back at her castle after five weeks out in the wilderness, just-Moon needed a bath.

"Oh, My Queen, welcome back," a mischievous voice greeted her from the ledge of a balcony, as she climbed the stairway up the tower to her royal bed, and bath, chambers. The inter-dimensional sorceress looked at her with both overt mockery and genuine delight to see her back.

"Hekapoo," Moon replied evenly. "I suppose I could say the same. Didn't know you were in Mewni."

"Well, you know, My Queen," she stressed and dragged out the title to the point of ridicule, never mind the fact that Hekapoo was one of the few people in Moon's life who were most definitely not among her subjects. She had been doing that ever since Moon defeated Toffee, way over two years ago now. Then again, they didn't cross paths so often after that. They were both rather busy people these days. "I have had my own pest control problems to deal with, dimension hopping abominations and the like. Very dull stuff. How goes, well, doing your job? I heard you are, how shall I put it? ...literally swamped with work."

"It goes: tiring, wet and rather stinky," the mewman counted with her fingers. "So while I am glad you are deigning to honor us with your always charming presence and sense of wit, Hekapoo, I do really have to take a shower now."

"Of course, My Queen," the council member bowed, way too deeply for it to be sincere. "Let me know if you need any, well, assistance."

"Assistance with what?" she responded without thinking, "Showering?"

She suddenly realized what she was saying, and felt the embarrassment creep up to her cheeks. She hoped the mud and dirt in her face would conceal her blush. What the hell had she just said? She looked at Hekapoo, who shrugged. Wait, had the sorceress actually been proposing, no... no way. It couldn't be.

Moon had to admit that she enjoyed her rare verbal sparing with the Forger of Scissors more than a little. She liked River, a lot, no change on that count. But one of the things that had made him stand out, was that he believed in her when no one else would. Now they all believed in her, and Hekapoo was the one who challenged her, when no one else dared. The one person undaunted by Moon the Undaunted. The only one, well, other than Moon herself, secretly poking fun at the fiction of the great warrior queen.

Hekapoo was also the one person that could respect her royal magic, but also understand its limits. Alright, the only person that wasn't her great-great-great-grandma encased in ice, a literal wizened old goat, a giant cosmic entity taking calls through a crystal ball, or a magical elf living inside a book. None of them counted. Not, you know, in that way. In the way in which Hekapoo's hips moved and drew Moon's furtive eyes to the sorceress backside every time she left the room. The way she licked her lips, and the edge of her small fangs, with slow expert motions. The way in which her smile promised wicked things to the young queen if she only ever took her up on her ever more blatant innuendos.

Dammit, Moon had thought not being able to decide between war and peace, or between which boy she liked, was hard enough. Now it turned out that winning the war was so much easier than maintaining the peace, and she didn't even know if she liked boys or girls in the first place!

"Well, My Queen, as your humble advisor, I am glad to offer my assistance, with whatever you might desire..." Hekapoo finally replied, after letting her bright yellow eyes linger over the monarch body for a while, as she considered the question. Moon swallowed hard. The feisty sorceress had been teasing her for a while, or so she had thought, never quite certain if it was only her own overactive imagination. But there was no mistaking this offer, though. It was a straight line if she'd ever heard one. The older woman was literally offering to join the young queen in the shower!

"Eh... I... I mean..." she stammered. "Look, Hekapoo, I... you are... is not that I don't... Sorry! Going to shower now, sorry!"

Young queen Moon raced up the stairs, leaving behind an unsurprised, even grinning, Hekapoo. She ran to her room, through the back door of her bedchamber, into the royal bath. Moments later she was alone, laying inside the tub, letting the hot water embrace her, reminding her of the heat that the fiery sorceress herself radiated, and feeling... quite daunted.

\----

"I am love, all-conquering"

The words were clearly nonsense, but the cold eldritch tone with which the emerald apparition spoke them rendered them a clear threat. Moon closed her eyes for just an instant, taking a moment to collect all that she was: queen, mother, warrior, mage, wife, lover, protector. She dipped down and summoned the magic around her into a powerful shielding bubble.

Not a moment too soon. The being from the meteor raised a diaphanous hand, and the sound of thunder followed. The closed glass doors that led to the ceremonial balcony shattered into a million pieces, each becoming a fast and deadly projectile, flung towards her, the songstrell, and her royal guards. The barrier spell held back the shards, protecting Moon and her subjects. All around them, tapestries, furniture, and even the stone walls themselves were ravaged by the ferocious crystal hailstorm.

The green fiery body floated in, slowly gliding behind the glass barrage. As it left the conflagration outside, its outline became more and more clear. It was made entirely of ghostly green flames, with two obvious exceptions: its head was an ornate silver mask fixed in an unsettlingly calm rictus, and its arms ended in two silvery gauntlets of similarly intricate design.

With reflexes honed through a lifetime of experience, Moon moved to counterattack. She raised her left hand and five rays of bright blue light emerged, one from each of her fingers, crisscrossing in the air and taking separate paths to converge on the creature's position, giving it no way to escape or avoid the hit. They all connected. A deafening brassy sound ringed inside Moon's head, and a sharp jolt of pain shot through her arm, right before it fell, numb and useless, to her side.

Moon had experienced magic resonance before, but never like this. Whatever the being was, it was not just magical in nature, it was made of magic itself. Worse than that, it was magical energy so antithetical to her own, that a direct hit with her spells resulted in catastrophic levels of backslash. Which meant... "Oh, no!"

The creature pointed at the glimmering blue bubble shield around her and the mewman soldiers. Suddenly, a green tint began spreading through the spell. A second later, the bubble popped, explosively. It threw the queen of Mewni back a dozen paces, slamming her against the throne room's back wall. She felt dizzy and disoriented.

"Protect the queen!" the guards shouted, charging the apparition, as Ruberiot ran for cover under a chair. They fought valiantly, and briefly, and so regrettably pointlessly. They never stood a chance. Some managed to hit the assailant with their weapons, while it reached out to gently tap the rest with the fingers of its gloves. In both cases, the final effect was exactly the same: the merest contact between them and the apparition sent each knight flying through the air with a blinding flash. They convulsed for a while after hitting the ground, as if struck by a lightning. Whether they were in agony then, or dead before they even landed, was anyone's guess. What was certain is that once the spasms stopped, the brave men would never move again.

"W... what do you want?" Moon asked.

The creature turned its expressionless mask towards her, then, by way of a response, it raised a silvery hand and pointed it at her chest. Arcs of green arcane power begun discharging all around in the magically saturated air. Moon closed her eyes, and tried desperately to summon all that she was once more, hoping against hope it would be enough.

\----

"You summoned me, My Queen," the fiery sorceress asked sardonically, as she walked into the Mewni council room. At the end of the table, Moon sat regally. She wore her battle armor, clean and shinny this time around. No swords to be seen. Her wand, the true symbol of her power, laid in front of her on the table. As Hekapoo arrived, the young monarch made a show of moving the wand from her left to her right side, as if re-arranging a piece of tableware.

"Yes, Hekapoo," Moon spoke, in full formal register. "I'd like to," she paused, "conduct negotiations."

"Negotiations? In the middle of the night?" Hekapoo pointed out to the starlit sky through the window, then at the empty seats through the council table. What was the kid's game. Whatever it was, it was rather novel, which made it all the more tempting to play along. "Between Mewni and who? I don't really do ruling stuff, and you know I can't speak for the high commission on my own. So, who am I representing, then?"

"Yourself," the beautiful royal brat declared. "And I shall represent primarily my own interest, not that of Mewni," she clarified. "So, Hekapoo, I'd like you to elaborate as to the nature of the offer you made to me two months ago?"

The sorceress racked her brain to figure out whatever the young queen might be referencing. Two months was a long while, particularly if you spent over a hundred years of it on a dimension where time simply ran differently. But Hekapoo had impeccable memory, and, to be absolutely truthful, she had been thinking about the Queen of Mewni far more than she did about most people, during that vast time.

"Oh," she recalled, with a grin. So that was what this was about? This should prove rather amusing. "I offered to help her royal highness take a bath, if I recall correctly."

"Funny thing that," Moon spoke. Her tone was haughty and controlled, but Hekapoo could see her trembling ever so slightly, it made her own spine shiver in anticipation. "I recall water is not generally to your liking, Hekapoo, so why would you propose such a thing?"

"Simple, My Queen," she dragged her tongue over the uttered title, as she finally took a seat, right atop the table, on the side opposite of Moon. "It is the other factor in that scenario that would be to my liking."

"Myself," Moon stated, plainly, then raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Hekapoo dragged a hand over the mahogany wood, pushing aside maps and notes, causing them to fall to the floor. "There are only a few people, of the vast many I meet in my line of work, whom I find, well... interesting. Lately, that includes you. My. Queen." She fixed her own eyes on those of the monarch of Mewni. 

It was no lie, there were only so many mortals that the Forger of Scissors didn't come to find absolutely lame, or downright soporific, after mere minutes of interaction. When such a rare person presented himself or herself, it couldn't but pique her interest. It had been literally millennia, in her own subjective time, since she had met someone quite like Moon: at once so innocent and so strong, hard to predict, indomitable. Undaunted they called her and, however much she made fun of it, she had to agree the title fit.

"Shall I assume, from this little ambush of yours, that you find me interesting as well?" the sorceress asked, taking the offensive.

"What if I do?" was Moon's whole response.

"Then my offer... remains quite open," Hekapoo stated, running a finger through her own leg.

"As I said," the younger woman responded, in a surprisingly controlled tone. "We are conducting negotiations. I would hardly be a wise ruler if I agreed to an offer I didn't understand, would I? What exactly are you proposing?"

The sorceress was confused. As far as she was concerned, she was being exceedingly clear.

"Let me cut to the chase, Hekapoo," Moon interrupted her thoughts. "I am interested. Curious might be the better description. But there is another one I am interested in as well. He and I are not betrothed, and we don't owe each other anything right now, but longer term, I think it is only natural that I pick him, if he would have me. If I take you on your offer, Hekapoo, then I can't promise you I will be with you long term, and I can't even promise you I will acknowledge it to the outside world. As a queen, I have to do what's right for Mewni. That also means, that if this would in any way disturb my relations with the Magic High Commission, in a professional capacity, then I must decline..."

Hekapoo laughed raucously, almost rolling on the table at Moon's long monologue. So that was her concern? That was what troubled Queen Moon the Undaunted about her little offer? As the Forger of Scissors began punching the table in a fit of hysterics, Moon seemed shocked, almost offended. It had probably taken her a good long while to come up with that little speech in her head. She was sweet, and naive, and oh so young and tender. Hekapoo felt herself blush. Doing her best to keep a good thing going, she forced herself to calm down from her guffawing.

"Moon, I have been around longer than you can possibly conceive," she explained. "You would not be able to promise me the 'long term' even if you gave me your whole life, and, more to the point, I am definitely not asking you to do so! You have your one - the Johansen boy, right? - I have a half-dozen right now, give or take, across as many dimensions. And I assure you, I can be professional when needed too. You are not even the first Queen of Mewni I have had this dance with. Can you handle that?"

"I can," she replied simply, and the sorceress believed her easily, despite her young age. "How about my last request? This is between the two of us, no one else must know."

Hekapoo wasn't quite sure why that would be such a big deal. Then again, the internal affairs of Mewnian politics were, more often than not, too tedious for her to inform herself on them any more than was absolutely necessary. "Sure, whatever."

"Then," Moon smiled, with transparently forced confidence, "I believe we have reached acceptable terms."

The sorceress licked her lips, and lazily stretched herself over the table, closing the distance between herself and the Butterfly child (and she'd be a child to her, even if she were a hundred rather than just seventeen). As she did, the forger leaned forward, showing the goods to Moon, through the low cut of her dress.

"So... ehm... now what?" the queen spoke, suddenly sounding very unsure. So much power, so much control, and yet so inexperienced. Deflowering her was going to be the most fun thing she did in ages, Hekapoo thought to herself.

"Now you shut up, your majesty," she replied, "and you let me give you what you bargained so hard for."

She leaned forward and kissed the queen's closed lips, enjoying the way she tensed in nervous anticipation. Hekapoo inhaled the scent of the young ruler. Apparently the song was right, she did smell of lavender. But she also smelled of sweat, and determination, and over two years of pent up desire. Moon Butterfly slowly opened her lips to receive her proving tongue. Soon after surrendering, she was meeting it hungrily with her own.

The forger ran a hand slowly up the length of the queen's arm. It was indeed silky soft as well. Despite the heat she knew her own skin radiated, her touch seemed to leave gossebumps wherever it trod. Her pointy ears could hear the beating of the girl's heart, still so pure, and yet so eager.

Carefully, she began removing the loose-fitting armor, piece by piece. It was harder work than most any garment, and even the sorceress could not easily break it apart, had she tried, for the armor was of course magical in nature. It frustrated her at every step, increasing her own sense of urgency. For a second she wondered if Moon had planned it so. No way, the young queen was too inexperienced in this matters to plan a trick like that, was she not?

Moon herself ran her fingers through Hekapoo's long hair, carefully avoiding the crackling flame. She firmly caressed the base of her right horn, which sent a pleasurable shiver through her skull. They removed each other's crown at once. Moments later, the forger finally managed to unburden the queen of her steel breastplate. A blue cotton blouse beneath peaked up just barely, with the ruler's small breasts. She ran two white hands over them, savoring the gasp that action elicited from the mewman sovereign.

"Anyone played with them yet?" the forger quipped. "Other than yourself?" she teased.

"None of your, ah, business, H-poo," Moon retorted.

The sorceress simply took the opportunity to sneak her hands under the blouse, to tease them directly, with soft calculated pinches. However, as she began to lift the fabric, the queen interrupted her, "Wait, I want to see yours first..."

"As you command, My Queen," Hekapoo quipped, and gladly pulled down her top, letting her, quite significant if she could say so herself, assets, out into the night air. To her surprise, Moon moved quickly, and soon she felt the mewman's lips close around her left breast. She suckled like a babe, with hungry abandon, and it did things for Hekapoo she didn't think anything did for her anymore. The young queen alternated circling with her tongue and literally sucking on them, and she eventually begun switching from one breast to the other. What she lacked in technique she more than made up in enthusiasm. It also didn't hurt that the Forger of Scissors found the whole situation unbelievably erotic.

"Queen Moon," she eventually interrupted her new lover, "lie on the table." she commanded. The most powerful woman in all of Mewnie did exactly as she asked.

It took agonizing minutes to remove the lower half of the royal battle armor, but eventually Hekapoo had her price. She ran her hands along the length of the queen's legs once and again, making her whimper, then she ran her tongue over the same path.

"Hekapoo, please," Moon begged. The vulnerable yet desirous tone almost sent the older woman over the edge from just the sound of it.

"Please what, My Queen?" she teased her one final time.

"Please... lick me... you know, there," the mewman whimpered as she parted her legs. The armor in her words and actions as discarded as that which used to cover her body.

"As you command, My Queen," Hekapoo replied. She kissed Moon's other lips and rolled her tongue over the sides and length of her opening. Gently at first, she drew the girl's arousal, until the always composed Moon was trashing around, yelping softly as she bit her own hand, and pushing herself pleadingly onto the sorceress face. When it seemed like the mewman couldn't take more of her slow torture, she began picking up the pace, running her tongue in circles around the mewman's most private nub, gently sucking into it. She settled into a much faster rhythm soon, and then stayed there, as the queen of Mewnie trembled and broke into loud lustful moans. Her hands grasped at the important papers in the table and crumpled them beyond recognition, her legs flailed and kicked down a globe and her own royal wand. She came violently, sweetly, and gloriously, under the forger's careful ministrations.

Another day, not far from that one in fact, and many more times after that, the young queen would repay the favor. But for now, the fiery woman was quite content with this conclusion. She had finally gotten through all the walls of Moon the Undaunted.

"Ah... ah...," Moon breathed heavily. She was almost as red as the sorceress hair. "You don't think... do you think... anyone heard that?"

"Probably," Hekapoo replied. "But hey, I kept my end of the bargain. I was discreet. Not my problem if you were not... My Queen."

\----

"Moon!" Hekapoo shouted horrified as her portal opened right in the middle of Mewni's throne room. She spotted the queen immediately. She was laying on the floor, her eyes closed. The powerful mewman looked resigned and defeated, as a humanoid shape made of emerald blazes raised a hand ominously towards her prone body. The sorceress felt, more than saw, the devastating magical force building up within the apparition. No way to reach her on time, no way to block the attack even if she did, none except...

With swift movements, Hekapoo broke her own dimensional scissors into two separate blades, and with each half she cut a distinct portal through the fabric of space: one to her left and one to her right, facing each other. The far end of the first portal opened between Moon and her opponent, whereas the second portal connected only with the dark void between the stars, in some dimension far away from this. Once both portals were open, Hekapoo jumped back. It was not a second too early.

A huge blast of green flames emerged from the appendage of the woman-shaped conflagration. It went in through the first portal, which the sorceress had placed between it and Moon. The blast then emerged in the left side of the two consecutive openings that laid before the Forger of Scissors. Finally, the flames disappeared into the right-side portal, flowing harmlessly into the void. And yet, Hekapoo could sense a tremor as the magics passed through her gateways, as if reality itself shook as the malignant spell was forced through its walls more than once.

An expressionless silver mask turned towards her, and, fortunately, away from Moon. The abomination then began floating, slowly, in her direction.

"That's right, come at me, you big nasty candle!" It was something someone had once said to her, but, the sorceress felt, it applied even more so to this monstrosity. 

All around herself, she began summoning her clones, until a veritable army stood ready to oppose the deadly intruder. They lunged forward as one, for that was what they were. Each of them wielding the divided scissors as a pair of daggers. If need be, they would rip the very fabric of the dimension to shreds, right from under this phantasm's flaming form. They would do that and more to protect Moon. Her friend. Her lover. Her queen.

The damned thing avoided every hit. Moving as fast as lightning itself. Perhaps literally so, for it was a being of light and flame. The creature avoided each and every one of her cuts. Miniature portals to nowhere opened and closed up in the air, so fast that no mewman eye could keep track of them, as Hekapoo slashed at the very foundations of space from every direction and every angle. Yet not a single one of them caught the incorporeal being. In the back of her mind, the sorceress imagined she could hear a laugh, as the expressionless mask stared back at her in contempt.

Hekapoo felt a pair of metallic fingers against her chest. The light physical impact was followed by an overwhelming magical current. It consumed her body, burning her insides to ashes, and extinguishing the flame that was her life. She felt herself die, again and again, as the creature popped her clones like soap bubbles. The agony of a dozen excruciatingly painful deaths was enough to paralyze her remaining selves, to cloud her thoughts, and to leave her unable to coordinate her one-woman assault force. Twice a dozen Hekapoos fell to the ground in unbearable agony.

\----

"Thank you, Lekmet, Romulus, for your eloquent words. Mewni will of course support the Magic High Commission's edict on this matter," Moon proclaimed, with a nod.

It had been almost four years since she assumed the throne of Mewni, almost four years since she fought Toffee and became Moon the Undaunted. In that time, she had grown to be respected not only as a military leader, but also as one of the most competent administrators the kingdom had ever seen. Under her reign, Mewnie had grown more prosperous than it had been in over a century, at least for the mewmans, if not for the monsters. Slowly, she had gained the respect of all members of the high commission as well.

"Hekapoo, may we speak in private?" Moon asked, as the members of the commission begun making motions to leave.

"Of course, Queen Moon," the sorceress replied, with a polite business-like nod. But as soon as the last of their peers was out of sight, her expression turned into a knowing smirk. "Or should I say, My Queen?"

"Hekapoo... I am afraid we do have to talk, for real this time," the mewman continued, somberly. She avoided the other woman's eyes, knowing if she saw them she might not be able to continue. Instead, she looked out through the window.

"Really?" the sorceress asked, teasingly. "We do? I thought you just wanted to recreate our first time, Moon. Do you remember? It was right here."

The forger ran a finger suggestively through the surface of the council room's table. In the last two years, the two had met occasionally, as their incredibly demanding lives allowed. They had joined one another in the queen's chambers, out in the forest, across dimensions, and even in the long promised royal bath. They had never once revisited this room, except for official business. Yet, for many months after their first encounter, Moon always felt a perverse pleasure during long and boring debates around this table, recalling the much more exciting activities it had once witnessed.

"Hekapoo," the queen spoke in a quiet, tentative tone, one she rarely ever used anymore. She had become used to being sure about so much, yet now was so terribly unsure. Not of her decision, but of its consequences, and her own ability to follow through with them. "I am marrying River before the summer solstice."

The sorceress blinked, and she looked perplexed for a second, hurt even. But in a moment that face was replaced by a soft smile, one Moon rarely saw in the forger's face. Not her usual smirk, and not the fake polite smile of the full officer of the Magic High Commission, but a genuine, if bittersweet, smile.

"He is an excellent choice, Moon," Hekapoo agreed. "He will be a good husband for you, and a good king for Mewni."

"Yes, thank you," Moon agreed. "But, well, you realize this means we can't continue... you know?"

"Yeah, no big deal, a brief fling for me, either way," the sorceress replied, but the queen could notice the slight tremor in her arm. "Did he know, though?"

"Yes," the mewman added, "he's known for a long time now."

"And I assume he asked for us to stop?!" Hekapoo sounded irritated, like she considered it rude for River to demand his own future wife to be loyal to him.

"No, Hekapoo, he didn't... but, I need to do what's good for the kingdom, and what's fair for him," Moon retorted. "It is my decision, not his. For what is worth, I am sorry..."

"Do you love him?"

"As much as I have ever loved anyone in my life," Moon admitted, truthfully. But she kept to herself the rest of her thought: 'just as much as I love you'.

\----

Moon saw the bodies of her lover and friend collapse to the floor. The sight was enough to pull her back into her senses, and then a familiar voice drew her back into the fray.

"Darling, catch!" shouted River, as he threw her two swords at her, and ran down the stairs, unsheathing his own weapon. She knew he was not prepared for this fight, just as well as she knew she could never dissuade him from fighting alongside her.

Moon closed her eyes, and dipped down into her own being, summoning forth all her will to protect them all: her husband, her lover, her subjects. Radiant butterfly wings and four extra arms sprouted from her torso. She caught both the swords with the upper pair. The middle arm on her left side, however, still dangled down, immobile.

Fully transformed, she flew into the deadly circle in front of her, eyes narrowing in determination as she saw the abomination execute Hekapoo's motionless copies, one by one, with cold precise motions. She struck at the torso of the being with one of the Royal Vorpal Swords of Mewni. It passed through the jade-colored flames harmlessly. At least, Moon observed, the magic of the swords didn't seem to produce the same backslash as her own. On the other hand, the creature seemed to not even notice the hit, or herself, as it focused on exterminating the sorceress' avatars.

Determined to interrupt the massacre before it was too late, the queen pulled back into the air, and then, with all her strength, she charged downwards from the sky, pointing the tip of her right-hand sword towards the back of the silver mask. It was fortunately corporeal, and metal impacted metal with a deafening sound. But while the mask showed no dent from the hit, Moon's precious magical sword broke like glass. Pieces of steel flew all around them.

The mewman had managed to distract the phantasm, however, as the silvery face turned expressionless to face in her direction. Taking advantage of the distraction, ten Hekapoo clones rose back to their feet and lunged forwards at the same time towards the apparition.

"Moon!" she heard a cry echoed tenfold. "I know what she is! We need to get Star's wand! I should have realized before, whatever you do, don't..."

The being raised a single hand up into the sky, and an explosion of singular potency discharged into every direction. Moon was flung through the air once more, impacting into the ceiling. River, his valiant charge interrupted, was pushed away into the corner of the room, left unconscious by the strength of the blow. Hekapoos hit the walls all around the throne room, all but one vanishing on impact.

The fiery creature turned towards the one remaining Hekapoo, and began gliding leisurely in its direction. No! No way Moon would let this happen. She would not let her lover die before her very eyes. She would not let anyone else die. She was Moon the Undaunted! Moon the Lizard-vanquisher! Moon the Mighty Warrior Queen of Mewni! She claimed those titles and more, with all the might they might confer, and all the weight of their obligations!

She closed her eyes once more and pulled all her six hands together. Even her broken arm responded to her commands, thus was the strength of her will. She dipped down into herself, deeper than ever before, and summoned all she was, perhaps all she could ever be. Her hopes and her fears. Her anger and her love. The darkness from deepest depths. The light from highest heights. Magical resonance be damned. A ball of blue power, bright like the midday sun, burned in her hands, and from it extended forth a beam of pure magical power. A personal conjuration, wordless and nameless. The brightest spell of Moon the Undaunted!

The being turned once again to face her. From the flames emerged two other pairs of glove-less fiery arms. Six to match Moon's own. It mirrored the queen's gesture, and a ball of blackness, darker than the starless sky, emerged between its hands. A dark beam, contrasted by green fire, rose to meet Moon's spell.

"Moon, nooo!!" she heard Hekapoo cry out.

Darkness and light collided, and a sound like the firing of a colossal cannon resounded through all the vastness of Mewni. Magical resonance like this world had never before seen reverberated through the air, before converging back onto Moon, and onto the emerald being. She felt as if her flesh was melting. Moon shed a last tear of regret, as her last thought went not to Hekapoo, or to River, but to her daughter, to Star, to a thought she had before she even met her. And then there was only darkness.

\----

Hekapoo felt the queen's hand lazily drift across the back of her hair. Her other self, the one behind Moon, hugged her tightly in response. They were all naked in the royal bed, naked and spent. The mewman lied nested between the two clones, embracing one and being embraced by the other, while the sorceress enjoyed being at once the little and the big spoon.

"You know, Hekapoo, River and I are trying for a child," Moon stated, matter-of-factly. 

King River, bless his soul, had suddenly remembered that he had an important hunt to lead, deep within the forest of certain death, for an elusive creature that came out only at night, exactly the one day the Forger of Scissors was around. Honestly, Moon had to be commended on her decision, for that if nothing else. It wasn't even that she and the queen's husband got along all that well, but apparently the king was glad to get out of the way if being with the sorceress made his wife happy. In fact, she suspected, it had probably been River that pushed Moon to go back on her previous decision to end things with her, less than a year after their marriage. Hekapoo had to say, to her own credit, that she had given it her best effort to make the man's wife very happy indeed.

"Well, glad to know you two are having fun," she quipped. Moon laughed. It was so rare for her to laugh these days.

"We are," Moon retorted. "Jealous?"

"Heh, pu-leeze, don't make me laugh," Hekapoo ran a finger along the mewman's back. "Should I tell you about this fighter I met on the arena of the underworld pits? He fought with a wooden twig and wouldn't even kill. He had muscles in places even I haven't seen before. Or about this guildmaster, lord of a far domain, with rituals that do things to you you can't even imagine? Or the gruff human colonel, deployed for years away from his wife? Or the dimensional priestess, sworn by sacred vows to chastity? Or the she-pirate, with the steel sharp wit and a tongue like the tide?"

"Alright, Hekapoo, I get the idea. But, well, do you tell them tales of the magical queen in the far away kingdom?" Moon asked, rather undaunted by the sorceress bragging.

"Not once," she grinned. "Because, as I remember, she swore me into silence."

Moon chuckled, but then went serious. She remained silent for a long while, and Hekapoo knew her well enough to know it had nothing to do with their discussion so far, or her own many affairs.

"You know," the queen's tone turned dark of a sudden, "I am scared."

"Scared?" Hekapoo asked curiously. "Of childbirth? You? My fierce queen undaunted?" she teased. But she turned the version of herself in front of Moon back to look at her directly, to embrace her from both sides.

"Heh, not the birth!" Moon rolled her eyes. "It is what comes after that worries me. Can I raise a kid? I try to be a good queen, I am not sure I can be a good wife... But I do wonder, can I ever be a good mother?"

"Are you asking me? You must truly be worried, then!" The Forger of Scissors had never been a mother, not once in endless centuries. She was ill suited to be the caring type. "Well, for what is worth, I am sure River will be a dotting father. And I know you can do anything you set your mind to... My Queen."

"Hekapoo, Toffee is still out there..." Moon closed her eyes, her voice sounded distant. "What if something happens? What if I can't be there, to be a mother, good or bad. I don't want my kid to have to go through what I went..."

Tears begun falling down the queen's cheeks. Tears long repressed, the scars left behind the queenly mask. The fire sorceress hugged her lover tightly, from all sides.

"Moon, it won't be like that," Hekapoo reassured her. "Even if there were a monster in this dumb dimension capable of besting you, he would first have to go through me!"

\----

Mewni castle was built by ancient magics, cast by powerful queens of old. That was perhaps the only reason the place hadn't just been leveled to the ground by the clash between light and darkness. Even so, cracks ran across all walls, floor, and ceiling, of the royal throne room. Green flames crackled all around, burning ancient and priceless tapestries. Precious vitrails had been smashed to dust.

None of that was worth a damn, however. Not now that the one truly precious thing this place had ever held laid demolished on the ground: six motionless arms and two lifeless eyes, not even the movement of her breathing to be seen. Moon. Her precious Moon. Even if she lived to see the death of the whole multiverse, Hekapoo knew, she would never meet someone like her, not among a million lovers in a million far away lands.

In the middle of the room, offensive by its mere presence, stood a six armed body of emerald flames. It regarded the sorceress with a silvery visage of indolently rigid metal.

"I. Am. Going. To. End. You!" cried Hekapoo. It was a promise, a sacred covenant with all dimensions. She would avenge Moon. No other option existed. Not acceptance. Not failure. Not death.

Her flame became a blazing bonfire atop of her, her hair became a twisted in the air as if lifted by a tornado only she herself felt. There was only one of her left, but one was enough once all restrain had been abandoned. With her left blade, she cut a portal behind the apparition, and with her right, a portal directly in front of herself. 

The second portal opened to the bottom of an ocean, deeper than any found on Earth or Mewni. Water sprung forth from it, pushed to supernatural velocity by thousands of atmospheres of pressure. It hit the creature of flame and lightning and it pushed it into the other gateway. Hekapoo tore a third hole into the fabric of this dimension to follow in pursuit, and closed all three portals with a gesture as soon as she was through. She would not dare devastate Mewni with what she needed to do. Honestly, she would barely have cared, except for it had been precious to Moon.

The place she had chosen to be the abomination's tomb was an empty dimension, pure whiteness as far as the eye could see, in every direction of the map. It had up and it had down, it had something that passed for ground - a blank marble-like expanse that formed an unending floor - but little else.

The green burning cosmic shit-stain stood up unharmed, with a gesture it instantaneously turned the water around it into vapor. Hekapoo begun to open up portals to the most inhospitable worlds of which she knew. Bursts of acid, hails of snow, burning lava, and a menagerie of infernal beasts, all came out of the many doors she cut. Yet the insufferable magic malediction with the silver face resisted all assaults. It stood there, impavid, taking all of her anger in silent mockery.

"Well, have it your way, you undeserving dimensional pustule! See how you like this one..." she flew up into the air, and raised her scissors, one final time, to cut a hole into the sky.

At the center of creation, like at the center of all things, laid a raging inferno of death and fire. Hekapoo braced herself, to open that final door, to the place that was the forge of universes in the same way that stars were the forges of planets. She knew the instant the tear opened, she herself would be incinerated into nothing, and she did not care, so long as her opponent died with her. So long as she could avenge Moon.

It did not happen so, however. The moment she lifted her scissors, a silver gauntlet caught them, forcing them shut. It had taken every attack so far without response, but this, apparently, it would not allow. Hekapoo felt the destructive magical force flowing through the blades of her scissors, as the phantasm held them. The magical instrument soaked the power, protecting its creator. It sent the magics far away, spreading the damage. Across universes, the forger knew, thousands of dimensional scissors were glowing green, burning up with arcane corruption, their etched names erased by a deadly hex aimed at herself.

"You know, I didn't come for her," Hekapoo heard the being speak, inside her own head. It finally spoke back to her now. Now that there was nothing left to say. "I came for you, she was merely in the way."

The sorceress eyes began to cry, despite herself, she felt herself crumble. It came for her? For her? That meant she had caused Moon to die. She had killed her. If she only had gone back, like the rest of the high commission, if she hadn't spent the night on Menwni. But then, why her?

"You already know why. Because you knew me, because you would eventually understand," the voice was cold and monotone, but the tone sounded somewhat like Moon's kid, like Star. "Since you touched me once, upon a dream."

Hekapoo had known what this being was, as soon as it had first touched her clones, because she had felt the magics that made it up once before. A dark spell, binding two people. A thread of lust atop a heavenly soul bond.

Then Hekapoo realized her mistake. She had come here to kill Moon's murderer, at any cost. Her own life a bargain by comparison. But not only was she bound to fail against such an overwhelming foe, even in victory, she would have dishonored Moon's memory. Moon would not have wanted her to avenger her death, she would have wanted her to allay her greatest fear: that her child would be left to stand alone against the night, as Moon herself once did.

She had to survive this! To escape somehow! To be there for Star. To warn her. To, to explain to her what this foe was, and... that it wasn't her fault, not really! Summoning all her resolve, Hekapoo let go of her scissors, and called upon the magics she had long used to forge them. With her bare hands, she tore a crack on the dimensional wall. It was not how it should be done, she wasn't even sure it could even be done like this, but she had to try. The pain was unbearable as she dug her own nails on the fabric of reality. She tumbled, rather than jumped, into her own portal. As she fell, the tunnel began to crumble around her, and she knew she would likely not make it whole to the other end.

'Well, if I can't, then perhaps that horror will not be able to get out from that place without a pair of scissors either,' Hekapoo thought, right before she lost consciousness.

\----

Ruberiot crawled timidly from under the debris. The throne room was unrecognizable. His eyes hurt from the dryness and the flames. His leg felt painful and his chest sore. Everything around him was muted by the shock of what he had just gone through, but it remained hellish nonetheless. The stuff of a hundred epic and sorrowful arias. In the end, however, he had survived.

"I am alive! I am alive!" he shouted in relief.

"Not for long, boy," came a cold furious voice from right in front of him. Ruberiot looked up to see the king, King River, bruised and singed, kneeling over a still figure in the center of the room. He didn't turn away from the body, even as he spoke, "Not for long if you don't scram from here right this instant and leave me bloody well alone!!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ruberiot lives!... yay?
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 16: The Prince of the Princess's Deepest Desire_  
>  _In which a duel is fought, we learn the dark secret behind the fairy tale, and a prince courts glory and death in equal measure for the sake of love and honor._


	16. The Prince of the Princess' Deepest Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a duel is fought, we learn the dark secret behind the fairy tale, and a prince courts glory and death in equal measure for the sake of love and honor.

## Chapter 16: The Prince of the Princess' Deepest Desire

> Who is the boy in the earthly attire?  
>  The prince of the princess's deepest desire  
>  \- The Songstrell Ruberiot (original continuity)  
> 

The dawn was dark and foggy at St. Olga's. The sun was either fully occluded by the low flowing clouds, or it had not deigned come out altogether. It hid itself from sight, as if in fear, or in mourning. Jackie wondered, briefly, why such unusually morbid thoughts came to her now. Was her own brief bout of melancholy simply caused by the weather? Or perhaps by the scary, yet strangely poetic, prospect of her incoming duel?

"Jackie, are you still sure you want to do this?" her boyfriend asked. Maybe he had read the worry in her expression, or maybe he simply felt the need to ask one final time, even when he knew the answer.

"Yes, Marco, I do. Don't worry dude," she replied, trying to affect her usual chill persona. She found it harder than usual. To be fair, she very much doubted she was in any real danger. Jackie had once seen Star summon a herd of wild unicorns in one literal second. It was a fact that was well worth keeping in mind, when thinking about how the princess had just spent the last half hour layering spell after spell over Jackie's frame. She was as prepared to fight this duel as anyone could ever be. 'Prince Jack' was wearing a majestic golden suit of full plate armor, which covered every inch of her body except for her head. He, or she, carried a fierce looking longsword with a golden seashell for a hilt and a blade that looked sharp enough to cut diamonds. Both armor and weapon felt surprisingly light in her hands as well, or maybe, thanks to Star's magic, she was now too strong to even notice their weight. "Honestly, Marco, right now I feel like I could take on an entire army!"

"Well, you probably could," the princess of Mewni mussed. "Actually, you might want to go a bit easy on her. Like, maybe you don't want to tear her arm from her torso the first time she parries a hit?"

Star placed her wand against her own cheek and looked pensive for a moment, as if she couldn't quite decide whether dismemberment was proper etiquette for a formal duel or not. Jackie personally would much rather have Snow White surrender. Sure, she knew the evil princess would extend her no such courtesy in return, but she still felt that an actual murder would be a bad thing to carry on her conscience. Like, bad karma of sorts. Defeating a tyrant in single combat was something good guys were supposed to do. Killing disturbed teenage girls with overwhelming magical advantage? Not so much.

The trio walked into the school's courtyard to find a huge crowd of princesses already waiting for them there, far larger than the one they saw the previous night. Clearly the news about this trial had spread like a wild fire since yesterday, and none of the girls wished to miss it, whether they were cheering for White, or silently hoping to be saved from her by Princess Marco.

Miss 'most ruthless in all the land' was there already as well, flaked by her usual entourage: the green-eyed brunette and the pachydermal sycophant with the camera phone. Princess White wore black chainmail trousers and an ebony steel breastplate extending into spiky shoulder pads. Honestly, thought Jackie, didn't the princess' sense of fashion alone gave up all pretense of not being the bad guy? As if that weren't enough, her blood-red lips curved into a condescending smirk as she saw them approach. Her eyes quickly fixed themselves on Princess Marco. "Ah, so you did not made off during the night, after all? I was beginning to fear Cass' prognostications were wrong for once..."

"I told you once, sister, and I'll tell you again, you don't scare me one bit!" Marco replied, as he sashayed forward, taking point and showing her palm to the would be dictator. "Miss Heinous doesn't boss these girls around anymore, and soon enough, neither will you!"

"So, am I to assume you reiterate your challenge?" Snow White retorted calmly, her expression unreadable.

"You betcha I do!" Princess Marco replied. The other princess smiled viciously at this proclamation, and pushed her own coal-black hair off to the side with a swift gesture. Star gave Jackie a meaningful and worried look.

"And I... Prince Jack, will fight in Princess Marco stead, as her chosen and willing proxy!" she shouted, stepping forward with large resolute strides. She spoke her lines exactly as she and Star had rehearsed.

"Ah, so you are having your boyfriend fight your fight? How droll," Princess White mocked. "Frankly, I expected better from the once-famous Princess Marco..."

Jackie felt nervous for a moment, wondering if Marco was going to let his pride derail their plans in the last minute. Star had mentioned that Marco had to accept her self-designation as proxy, in order for it to be valid, and she was sure the goth girl's words were hard for the boy to take in stride.

"He wanted to be the one to kick your ass, Apple Pie," Marco replied with a shrug. "What can I say, I like a man that helps at home... you know, taking out the trash!"

Murmurs and snickers rippled through the crowd, and the evil princess' already white-as-snow skin went even whiter at the pink-clothed princess' comeback. Or perhaps, at the mention of apples.

"Very well then," Snow White spat, stopping the chatter in the background with a gesture of her hand. "I accept your challenge, and I will fight your prince Jack. You will get to mourn your love first, Princess Marco, by your own choice, and then I'll deal with you. I am the challenged party. I choose swords."

"Fine by me," countered Jackie, giving her own blade an easy swirl around her right hand.

Another round of murmurs ran along the audience. It was not unlike the wind through a row of bushes. Jackie saw, through the corner of her eye, coins and multicolor bills changing hands. It took her a second to understand: the princesses were betting on the outcome of the fight.

"Hey Cass," spoke the uglier of the two Snow White flunkies to her green-eyed comrade. "White's got this one for sure, right?" She was eying Prince Jack's gleaming sword with a distrustful expression.

The girl called Cass closed her eyes, looked up and spoke with a distant and foggy tone, "This fading night has seen a clash of light and darkness, the starless sky is to swallow the moon, a pair of lovers to be separated by the grim chasm of death, and the rising sun shall find royal blood spilled..."

"Alright, alright, I'll take that as a yes," the blue elephantine princess interrupted her friend and shook her head. "Fine, five hundred for White!"

"I raise you, six fifty for Jacki... I mean, Prince Jack!" Marco jumped in. Jackie raised an eyebrow and her boyfriend gave her a sheepish look.

"Deal," the other girl spoke, and walked up to them to shake hands with Marco and take yet another surprise picture. "Ca-me-ra phone!"

It was almost like being at the park again, back in Echo Creek, with people betting on whether or not she could pull off specific stunts on the skateboard. So far, ten to one, Jackie had won almost every bet. The thought brought a confident smile to her lips, one that made her almost forget that, should she fail this time, not only would Marco be $650 poorer, they both might end up being a head shorter.

"Wait," Star spoke, suddenly. She had been silent for a while now. "Where is Ponyhead?"

Then Jackie realized; they had not seen the floating horse head, nor her little fairy companion, all morning. In fact, they hadn't seen them since last night.

"Oh," Princess White feigned surprise, as her face turned back from anger into a smug grin. "You needn't worry about that. The traitors are being dealt with already. We... took them into custody as you all slept."

Star gasped. Marco let out a curse. Jackie remained silent, but her eyes went wide with horror.

"Tell me what you did to them, right now!" Star demanded, pointing her wand directly at White. The other princess scoffed and kept quiet. She knew as well as Star, and even Jackie did, that if the mewman attacked her now, the duel would be forfeit on her and Marco's side. Star had been the one to explain that to Jackie, after all. There was one way to get an answer though, and it was through a swift victory. Prince Jack was determined as ever to achieve just that.

She didn't even like Ponyhead all that much. But still, she was quite sure that whatever 'dealt with' meant here, it was not something she wished on her worst enemy, much less the friend of her friend. For a moment she felt herself overcome with revulsion and horror at the person she was about to fight. Then again, she reminded herself, she was dealing with a power-mad dictator, right out from an analogue of a bloody revolution. She almost kicked herself for not thinking about that earlier, for not making sure they kept an eye out for each other through the night, and for having, even for a moment, forgotten to take the situation deadly seriously. She was sure Marco was feeling the same. Well, there would be plenty of time for recrimination later. For now, it just drove home how dangerous this 'Princess White' person was. Jackie needed to focus on the fight first, before anything else could go wrong.

Marco and Star walked out of the circle formed by the onlookers, leaving White and Jack in the middle, ten paces apart. All three of them glared at the dark-haired princess with silent and furious determination. The brunette, who the sociopathic princess and her other flunky had called Cass, begun counting down from ten, in a disinterested, or perhaps trance-like, tone. As per Star's instructions, and drawing from her own fencing lessons, Jackie prepared herself. She flexed her legs into a solid stance, and held her own blade high, to block any opening attack from the pale princess.

The count reached zero and neither fighter moved a muscle. They stood there, examining each other, waiting for their opponent to make the first move. Snow White stance was impeccable, at least as far as Jackie was capable of judging it. She soon realized that, as it came to technique, she was probably far outmatched. Well, fortunately, she did have a secret weapon that should more than even the odds.

Prince Jack lunged forward and sliced a broad horizontal slide as his opening move. If White jumped backwards, then he might break her balance. If she parried, then she could test her magical strength and force her off balance. 

The dark haired princess chose to parry. Jackie's bright clean blade impacted the wicked looking jagged sword of Snow White with a loud clang. The Earth girl had calibrated her swing to be but a light tap, not knowing her own strength yet. Slowly, she began to apply more and more force, expecting the other princess' resistance to give in, sooner rather than later. However, Princess White did not budge, not one bit. She held their contest long past the point at which Jackie was giving it her all.

Had the spell perhaps failed somehow? Was she not as strong as Star had predicted? Jackie looked down, and saw the stone floor crack under the pressure her feet exerted on it as she dug-in to push against her rival.

"You are strong. Very strong," Princess White remarked. She smiled. It was a vicious knowing smile. "I am stronger!"

Jackie felt the force being applied on the other side of their tug of war explode and come crashing against her own blade. On reflex, she let go, and jumped to the side. A second blow followed the first, as Snow White's blade came swinging downwards on her position. The gold-clad prince fell to the floor and rolled away just in time, recovering her stance a second after with one swift movement.

Princess White's strike missed her mark and hit the ground directly. A long fissure, arm deep, extended from the point of impact until right before the feet of the nearest onlookers. The crowd gasped. Star covered her mouth in surprise. Marco went almost as pale as their enemy.

\----

Marco felt terrified as he saw the princess slash an incredibly deep cut on the stone foundation of the courtyard. Whatever Snow White was, it wasn't human! Hell, by all accounts she wasn't mewman either. Star was strong, but not this strong. He wasn't even sure Miss Skullnick was this strong. And unlike Miss Skullnick, the dark princess was fast, horrifyingly fast.

She moved like a bladed tornado, slashing and lunging. Marco could hardly follow; by the time he comprehended the last feint, the tyrant princess had already launched her next attack. Through it all, Jackie kept parrying and evading, and the Earth boy couldn't help but be impressed at her skill. Her magical strength must have been astounding as well, since she could withstand to block against the force of White's hits. Unfortunately, it was also quite clear that 'Prince Jack' was barely holding on the defensive and had no hope in sight of a successful counterattack.

"Gotta give it to you, Princess Marco," he heard Snow White quip as she kept on her onslaught, "you surely know how to find yourself a real catch. It is been a good while since anyone stood this long against my blade. I will have fun skewering this prince charming, I'll tell you that. And know that, as I rip out his still beating heart with my blade, I will be thinking of you. It will make it even sweeter!"

The boy felt the anger swell within him, and for a second he was ready to jump in, with a shout and a karate chop. Discreetly, Star grabbed him from behind his shirt, pulling him back. If he intervened, then the duel was forfeit, and is not like he would be more effective against the armed princess than Jackie was, especially with all of Star's magic layered on top of her. Then again, duel or not, Marco hoped Star would intervene if things got truly dire. He had taken her aside, made her promise nothing would happen to Jackie. The mewman princess had said nothing could go wrong, not with all she had cast on the other girl, but that if for any reason it did, then she would break the rules of the duel herself, and, quote 'go all narwhal on her ass'.

But, to Marco's eyes, it looked like things had gone wrong already. A bad thought wormed itself into Marco's mind. What if Star decided not to intervene? What if the mewman girl was ok with Jackie dying? He thought back to Ruberiot's song, and to puppet Star jealous and hurt about puppet Jackie and puppet Marco. He thought back to a certain Game of Flags, and to the tactics Star was prepared to use to win. No! That was crazy. There was no way Star would want Jackie to be hurt!

"Ripping out people's hearts? Sounds like quite the wicked queen style, Apple Cider," Marco forced himself, or herself, to retort. It was a lame comeback, hounded as he was with insane, yet absurdly persistent, worries. He hoped to at least distract the raven-haired girl long enough for Jackie to gain back the initiative. "You claim not to be a tyrant, to be fighting to help these girls. But look at her, sisters, is that a liberator? Or just an even crueler oppressor?!"

Princess White threw a savage look Marco's way, as she grinned maliciously and pushed against Jackie with ever more vicious strikes. "Cruelty is in the eye of the beholder. I merely have the will to do what I must, and the courage to fight my own battles. Unlike fake leaders who sacrifice even their loved ones as pawns!"

Marco fell silent at that comeback, partly because he could not deny, deep down, that he still felt guilty about letting his girlfriend fight for him. Whether it was Star or Jackie, it didn't matter, it should have been him.

A chuckle interrupted his thoughts, and as he turned back to look at the fight, he saw not Snow White, but Prince Jack, grinning and laughing under her breath as she blocked yet another downwards strike. "Please, I am no one's pawn. I fight because I want to fight. If you had a single love, or a single friend, in all of the world, you would understand that. That you don't, only tells me, and these girls, what a miserable, quid-pro-quo, lonely bitch you are!"

"How dare you!" Snow White slashed horizontally, quickly and ferociously. But even Marco could tell her movements had gotten a fair bit more sloppy. "I am loved by millions! And I protect them, I guide them, in return! My subjects, these princesses, my friends, they all adore me!"

"Really?" Marco shouted at her, providing at least verbal backup, seizing on the nerve Jackie had apparently hit with her own declaration. "Because from where I am standing, it looks to me like they fear your crazy bloodthirsty ass!"

"You are a rotten apple, and they know it," Jackie pressed on. "I bet not even your two cronies would put their lives on the line for you! Not one of those people you claim love you would do what I am doing now. None. Not for you."

"Well," Snow White replied, her tone suddenly glacial, "after what they are about to witness... they would be utter fools to follow your example!"

The dark-haired princess swung her blade furiously at the blond prince, and the jagged sword made contact, right against Prince Jack's stomach. It hit the middle of her glinting golden armor. Princess White's strike, powerful enough to break the ground apart, stopped a hair's width away from the metal plate. In the air, near the point of impact, shimmered golden waves of light, looking a bit like those created by a pebble hitting the surface of water. Something around the armor itself stopped the vicious princess' attack, something powerful and magic in nature.

In her rush to deliver a mortal blow, the goth had left herself exposed in return, and Prince Jack took the opportunity to deliver well deserved payback. Her blade came down on her opponents shoulder, and it tore through the steel shoulder pads and the chain mail beneath as if through butter. Whatever the jagged sword of the tyrant-princess was made of, it had held remarkably well, Marco realized, against what was surely a magical edge in Prince Jack's sword. Unfortunately for Princess White, her armor was not made of the same stuff. Jackie's blade dug into the other fighter's flesh, cutting a hand's width below the shoulder. Blood splashed around, and Marco reminded himself not to ever misjudge Star, or question her assurances, ever again.

\----

Snow White stepped backwards, howling in pain. No matter how strong, this strike should have severed the nerves to her sword arm. The fight was done. Star recognized a crippling injury when she saw one, even if the two human kids did not. In a Mewni duel, this was the time where the victor was supposed to either make a spectacle of it, or, more rarely, a show of mercy.

So it came as great surprise to the mewman when Snow White lunged forward again, with her half-severed arm responding almost as well as if it were unharmed, and rammed the toothy-looking blade towards Jackie's face. 

The human girl yelled in surprise, and Star could not fault her in the least. She would have been scared too, even knowing what was going to happen. The glimmering golden waves of the magical barrier rose in front of Prince Jack's unprotected face just the same as they would have over any part of the surface of her armor. Like, wouldn't it be sort of pointless if the spell protected everything but her head? Duh! That was the most important part!

"Guess now I know where all that bravery of yours comes from," Snow White commented, one part mockery and two parts exasperation. Her pointed fangs showed as her face turned into an angry frown. Wait, her pointed fangs?! Since when did she have fangs? They were small, to be sure, but definitely inhuman, no like small cute Oskar-fangs, but sort of like, well, Tom-fangs, perhaps even longer.

"Well," Star spoke, "and where does yours come from? Because I feel you were just dealt a-, a-, a dis-arming blow, apple... mmm... juice?"

Compared to Marco's and Jackie's smack talk, Star felt seriously out of the game, perhaps she needed to practice this sort of thing more...

"Oh," the wicked princess smirked back at her. "So you mean you haven't figured it out? Even knowing who I am? Even knowing the legend?"

"What legend, Apple Peel?" Jackie asked in turn, now recovered from the shock and swatting away her opponent's blade with her own. "The part about chocking on fruit? Or living in a house alone with seven midgets?"

"No," Snow White retorted, and Star noticed the red irises shining in the fog. "But ask yourselves, this, then: What do you make of a girl, with skin as white as snow, as cold as snow, as dead as snow..."

Thunder crackled around them, far away they heard the howling of wolves, and the evil princess dropped all pretense of humanity. Her limbs stretched and bent in unnatural ways, her face twisted into a grotesque visage, full of ridges and sharp fangs and drool. She moved faster than before, stroke more violent than before. Jackie could not block or riposte a single hit now. Hit after hit, the black sword connected against the golden armor. Or, in reality, millimeters above, against the shielding spell. But Star knew what the other princess seemed to intuit: every impact took some of the protection away. The magical defenses she had cast on Jackie were very powerful, extraordinarily powerful, but they were not inexhaustible.

"... with hair as black as coal, as black as night, as black as raven's wings..." Snow White continued, as she kept pressing her assault. Soon they could all hear the metallic clang of the sword actually hitting the armor, even as faint circles of golden sparks still drifted out on every hit.

"... with lips as red as..." the blade hit Jackie's cheek, and despite the magical shield, it sliced a shallow cut on the side of her face. Snow White took her own blade to her lips and licked it, hungrily "... blood."

Every princess around the circle looked horrified now. Even Princess White's two friends were taking a step backwards and shaking their heads in terror. The vampire looked around at all of them, and began laughing malevolently into the night.

"Oh, I so had hoped to keep the charade a bit longer," she spoke. "Rebel princesses? A glorious fight against their oppressors? Give me a break! Fine, you win, Princess Marco, Prince Jack, you have unmasked me!" the fiend cackled with a deranged grin. Then it went silent all of a sudden and looked back down at Jackie, who stood her ground despite trembling knees. "Now, die!"

\----

The next strike smashed the side of her armor, cracking it and bending it slightly inwards. A sharp jolt of pain spread along her left side as some of the impact was transfered through the metal to her ribs. Jackie had been feeling the hits for a while. The strike before this one, the one to her face, had even cut her skin. Now it felt as if the magical protection wasn't there at all anymore. Even when White slashed only at the parts of her body covered by hard armor platting it hurt like a motherfucker. If she got hit in the fleshy bits now, even once, it would be game over, Jackie was certain of it.

She focused on every fencing lesson she had ever had, tried the best she could to block the super-humanly fast swings of the vampire's blade. 'Yes, Snow White is not only an aspiring dictator, she is also a fucking vampire, how crazy is that? No, Jackie, focus, come on, like your life depends on it!' she mentally admonished herself.

Turns out that fighting for your life is not like fencing at all. You feel something awful drop in your stomach, you feel your muscles tense, you see your short life flashing before your eyes. At the same time, you are moving, and you are jumping, and you are shifting your balance from foot to foot, because if you miss a step, if you fumble a block, then you are dead. She was managing to hold off the monster's attacks now, which she never could when the magical barrier was protecting her, not after Snow White went full undead horror on her. Curious what adrenaline and the prospect of imminent dead, combined with magically enhanced reflexes, could do for you.

But in the end, it was only a question of time. And not much time at that. Soon Jackie saw it, the slash that she would not be able to parry. The one that she could not get away from. It was headed straight for her neck. Time seemed to literally slow down as the edge of the wicked blade drew closer and closer. Oh well, maybe Marco and Star had been right after all, she was not ready for adventure. It turned out, her first inter-dimensional jaunt with them would be her last.

Wait. Time was literally slowing down! Not figuratively slowing down, literally slowing to a crawl! Out of the corner of her eye, Jackie saw Star walk into the circle of the arena, her wand glowing, her face contorted in concentration.

"Hey Jackie," she spoke, apologetically.

"Hey Star," the human girl retorted. Surprisingly, she could move her mouth, but not the rest of her body. It felt sort of like a dream, and so did their conversation. "Thought Marco said you didn't freeze time anymore."

"I am not freezing it, just slowing it, and well, is kind of a special situation, you know," the mewman explained.

"Oh, I know," Jackie retorted. With some difficulty, she managed to move her eyes to point meaningfully at the blade slowly inching towards her neck. She wanted to ask Star how exactly it was that she could only move some parts of herself at normal speed, even as her mind processed things about as fast as Star moved, and everything else was near frozen. But perhaps this was not the time.

"So, just to be clear, Jackie," Star announced, apologetically. "I am about to forfeit your duel and try to incinerate her with as much solar power as I can manage to summon with this thing. Not sure if it will be enough, but I think at this point the ideological debate is settled, so I am sure none of the princesses are going to side with her, which makes this much easier and..."

"Wait, Star, don't," Jackie begged.

"Don't?" the princess replied confused.

"Just, like, give me a two seconds head start when you unfreeze things," she had to ask for that at least, as much as it pained her. Otherwise she was dead, literally. "But don't do anything else, let me finish this myself."

"Jackie, that's insane! She is a freaking vampire, probably a really old one or something, considering how strong she is. We couldn't anticipate this, this is clearly out of your league. She might be out of my league too. So, well, let's fight her together," Star spoke. It was a way out, an easy way out, without Jackie having to admit she was weak, because Star herself said this was a formidable opponent, for either of them.

"No."

"No?"

"No," Jackie repeated. "Look, Star, I challenged her. I had my own aces up my sleeve and she still managed to surprise us. But that doesn't change the fact that I agreed to fight her, fair and square, or at least relatively so... so, two seconds head start?"

"Jackie..." Star seemed visibly conflicted. "Are you sure? Marco would say no, if he could hear you. He would tell me to disregard everything you are saying and to blast her with everything I got..."

"Yeah," Jackie agreed. She smiled, which was hard to do when time was half-frozen. "Hey, if she kills me, then you got him all for yourself, right?"

"Don't even joke about that..." Star replied. "Two seconds head start, and I am not sure I will be able to stop things in time again. You better make it out alive, Jackie, or I swear I am going to personally whoop your ass afterwards, ok?"

Jackie chuckled. Then she moved like lightning to parry Snow White's strike. Time resumed anew, as did her life and dead dance with a bloodsucking vampire. Why the hell did she need to be so stubborn? If you asked Jackie, even she wouldn't be able to tell you. But she had to all the same.

From that stubbornness rose a fighting spirit that surpassed even that triggered by the risk of impending death. For to admit defeat after claiming this challenge, would inexplicably have been much worse than to die. Jackie was not fighting for Horse Head, or even for Marco, and she was not fighting for her own skin. She was fighting for her honor and her self-respect, and that, right now, seemed even more vital. With renewed strength, she was first able to hold Princess White's assault, and then to press her own offensive. Soon the vampire was taking backwards steps and making use of all its unholy strength just to parry the slashes from the golden prince Jack.

As soon as she saw a clear opening, Jackie committed herself to the one final push, even at the cost of leaving herself open to a fatal blow. She planted both feet firmly in the ground, gripped the pommel of her sword with all of her enhanced strength, and delivered a punishing lunge. The strike pierced White's armor and buried the point of her sword deep into her chest, carving a hole right through her most vital center and coming out, again through black metal, on the other end.

The undead abomination simply chuckled at the futile attempt, and slashed back towards the human's head, seemingly undeterred. Prince Jack jumped backwards, out of the vampire's reach. But in doing so, she had to let go of her sword, which remained stuck inside the tyrant princess' unbeating heart.

"You don't know much about vampires, do you, prince Jack?" Snow White scolded her, as she advanced in her direction, without bothering to remove the sword from her chest. The pointy end was sticking through the back of the girl and it still din't seem to bother her. "A metal sword won't do it. Even a wooden stake won't work, not on me, it would just shatter against my flesh. Only the sun can harm me, and the sun will not dare shine on this forsaken school. Not as long as I can be said to rule over here. The sun won't save you, unless I lose, and without it you cannot win. All you can do now is useless!" she laughed, "Useless!"

The evil princess lunged towards the gold armored prince, pushing the point of her curved sword towards her face. The human managed to avoid the blow, but in doing so, she lost her footing and fell to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye, Jackie saw Star's grip around her wand tense. She forced herself to flash a reassuring grin towards the mewman. Anything to stop her from intervening.

White lifted her wicked blade once more and followed through with a downward slice. Prince Jack should have been finished, he was in the floor, he was unarmed, he had no way to block or to dodge. But Jackie Lynn Thomas did. She did as she had done so many times in the past, as she had done the countless times she had fallen to the floor, learning to ride her skateboard: she got up. She got up by pushing down with one hand and with both her legs, rolling her body as she rose to her feet. It was a trick to get up quickly after a fall, and with a normal human strength and reflexes it would have gotten her standing straight in just a second. With a magically-enhanced body, it sent her flying into the air, above Princess White. The acrobatic maneuver ended with her falling back to the ground, on her feet, behind the raven-haired creature of the night.

The vampire twisted around to attack once more, but Jackie was long ready. With a swift movement, she kicked Snow White's wrist, causing her to release the grip on her cruel black sword. At the same time, she lunged forward and grabbed her own blade, ripping it from the bloody monster's chest in a single movement, then swinging it back around, until the edge was resting directly on the former tyrant's neck.

"So, only sunlight and no stakes, right? Well, how about decapitation?" she asked, with a cold controlled tone. Her opponent froze as the blade touched the snow-cold skin. "Oh, I hear that works on vampires well enough, at least in the tales they tell where I am from. Maybe you are special, Snowflake. But guess what? So is this sword. And we already know it can cut you. So, the question is: how do you think you'll fare without a head?"

"Please, if you were really going to do it, you would have tried it already, like you did in your last two futile attempts at harming me. But don't think I don't notice what the difference is, Prince Jack: now you have the time to think and I am disarmed. I think you don't have the guts for an execution," Snow White replied, as she begun to smirk. "That's what I love about knights in shining armor, so noble, so predictable, and so utterly harmless."

"You know, it is true I don't like killing people, so you might have been right," Jackie pretended to concede, "if you were alive. But you are not people, are you? Way I see it, you are a corpse already, so why should I care in how many pieces I leave you?"

Princess White remained silent, immobile, held there with a sword to her neck. In all fairness, vampires seemed sentient, so the ethics of this weren't quite as uncomplicated as Jackie was trying to pretend. She wondered for a second if, by sparing Snow White, a literal bloodsucking monster, she would be responsible for her future victims. Then she wondered if vampires were inherently evil or had as much free will as anyone else, to be good or bad as they chose. She admonished herself that Snow White didn't seem like the kind to ever be redeemed, then admonished herself again that it was probably not her call to make. It wouldn't have been, if she were human.

"Tell you what," spoke gallant Prince Jack, "I'll let you amble on some more, on three conditions. The first is your full surrender in this duel, of course. The second, is that you tell me where Princess Pony Head and Princess Glintwisp are, and that they be unharmed. If you have hurt either of them in any way that they won't be fully recovered from by tonight, the deal is off and, make no mistake, I will end you. The third is that you scramble out of here and never again show your ugly face in St. O's or in the presence of myself or my friends. How does that sound? I'd say it is pretty generous, all things considered. Reject that deal, and you will find my nobility to be quite flexible when it comes to your kind."

Blood-red lips pursed together as the princess frowned in thought, and Jackie pushed the blade closer to her neck to help her decision along. Finally, Snow White replied, "they are in the highest room atop tower three, or what your famous Princess Marco left of it. I haven't fed on either of them, nor had a chance to torture them, I was saving that... pleasure... for after our duel." The creature grinned and Jackie felt herself reconsider her mercy. "I do promise not to come back to this stink-hole, and to leave you and your princess Marco alone," Jackie caught on and pushed the slightest bit further into the sneaky creature's neck, "...as well as the mewman and all the princesses here. And... and... I concede."

The evil princess let both her arms fall to her sides, and withdrew back her fangs. Her monstrous visage transformed back into one of unblemished fairytale beauty, except for the resentful scowl it bore. A roar of cheers erupted all around them, accompanied by a chant of "Jack, Jack, Jack!"

As the princesses rejoiced, the fog began to lift, and the sky started to brighten. Whatever held back the dawn was gone the moment the vampire princess admitted defeat. Snow White took a step backwards, and Jackie allowed her to do so. She beamed her a victorious cocksure smile. And the charming Prince Jack said, "looks like the sun is coming up after all. I'd be getting out of here while you still can, if I were you!" 

Like a bat out of hell, the dark-haired princess scrambled for the gates of St. Olga's. Thin threads of smoke begun raising from her back and the top of her head. She ran out into the dead trees surrounding the school, seeking refuge from the rising sun, and soon vanished into the wilderness.

"Well, Snow White... how do you like them... apples!?" cried Princess Marco from behind her brave prince. A fair number among the audience, and Jackie herself, groaned.

But, in all fairness, hearing her boyfriend speak reminded Jackie of one thing, one thing she still had left to do, that she wanted to do, needed to do after the fight. Her heart was pumping, her breathing still fast, and she felt, well, she felt invincible! She had to prolong this feeling of victory, and there was only one way she could think of as to how. A perfect way to cap a perfect adventure.

"Star, sorry to be selfish, but would you mind checking up on Pony Head and Glintwisp?" Jackie finally spoke. She walked tiredly back towards the Mewman princess and gave her back the magical golden sword. For all she knew, it might turn into a pumpkin before the end of the day. Star had said none of the spells were even close to permanent.

"Yeah, sure, but, don't you want to... oooohhh," Star stopped in mid-sentence, as Prince Jack lifted Princess Marco into his arms and began walking back into the mansion that housed the former school, with the pink dressed rebel princess cradled in his arms.

"Jack! Jack! Jack!"

\----

Marco's heart was pounding as he let himself be whisked away through dim lit corridors and portrait-decorated stairways. They were alright. They were safe. They had won! No, Jackie had won, and she had been... amazing! 

He looked up, at the girl in the prince disguise. She was carrying him through the hallways of Saint Olga's, holding him delicately and effortlessly in front of herself, one arm under his neck and the other under his knees. He smiled a faint nervous smile, and she gave him a confident grin in return.

It was not that he approved of it, of the risks Jackie had taken. Princess White had been terrifying, and it was doubly terrifying when you weren't the one in the line of fire. Marco had been in many life or death fights in the last year of rooming with Star, and he had been Toffee's prisoner once. The smug lizard was probably the only foe he knew who might have been even more dangerous than the vampire princess. And yet, he hadn't been one tenth as scared when facing him, as he had been watching Jackie and White fight. It was always worse to see your loved ones endanger themselves on your behalf, especially when they were obviously under-prepared for the fray. He almost never worried like that about Star, not because he cared for her any less, far from it, but because, well, she was Star! She was the strongest person he knew.

But, then again, was Jackie any weaker? Was she really? Given what he had just seen, Marco was inclined to say no. A part of his brain kept nagging at him that it should have been him out there, fighting that duel instead. But if it had indeed been him, even empowered by Star's magic just as much as 'Prince Jack' had been, would the result have been the same? Would he have won? Could he have won? A voice in his head told him that he wouldn't have, couldn't have. If he had fought instead of Jackie, then he would likely now be dead, and all would have been lost for the princesses of St. O's. The idea that he might be, in the end, the weaker of the three, surprised him. As did the fact that he didn't seem to have a problem with it. Not if it was Star and Jackie, as opposed to say, Jeremy, who bested him.

He had always had the biggest crush on Jackie, going as far as he could remember. He was always in awe of how confident, how athletic, how popular, how all around awesome she was. Sure, today she had literally been the day's hero: the fairytale prince conquering the evil monster and delivering freedom onto the masses. But then again, she had always been his hero (or, well, heroine).

"You know, Jackie, that was really, really cool," he finally said. In the battle between the side of him that wanted to tell her to never do something like that ever again, and the side of him that was overcome with awe, the second won. "But, well, are you alright?"

"You mean after nearly dying fighting a literal bloodthirsty creature of the night?" Jackie replied. She beamed at him. "Honestly, never been better!"

"That's... good," Marco responded, unable to think of anything smarter to say. "Eh, shouldn't we be looking for Pointyhead and Glintwisp?"

"Star can handle that. It's not like we would get to them any quicker if we are with her, and I think Horse Head would prefer seeing her than us," reasoned the skateboarder girl. "Besides, I believe this is the part of the story in which the prince, having rescued his princess and defended her honor, gets his well deserved reward..."

"Oh," was all the boy was able to say in return. For a moment it was like the last few months had never happened, and he was back to literally being unable to form coherent sentences in the presence of Jackie Lynn Thomas, or Prince Jack, or whomever she or he was.

The golden-armored knight looked down at him with a slight frown. "I mean, you know I am being tongue in cheek here, right? You can always say no if not in the mood, Marco... is just, you'd be surprised how much of a turn on this sort of adrenaline is..."

"No, sister, I hear ya," replied the boy, taking on her best Princess Marco persona. Weirdly enough, he felt more sure of himself with that. He also knew, from experience, exactly what Jackie was talking about.

"Sister?" Jackie raised an eyebrow. Then, affecting what Marco was sure was her best attempt at a masculine low bass voice. "I am afraid you must be mistaking me for someone else, milady."

Marco rolled his eyes. "I am not a..." he begun. But something in the look Jackie gave him, a smoldering desire-filled look, made him stop mid-sentence.

Soon after, they reached one of the rooms they had slept in the night before. Jackie's room, actually, rather than his and Star's. The girl in the prince costume kicked the door open, and as she did, Marco felt a wave of warm and light surround both of them. He blinked a few times, then realized, to his surprise, and Jackie's as well, that the golden armor had vanished into thin air. Underneath, Prince Jack's original green, white and gold outfit, remained unchanged.

"Wait, Jackie, are Star's spells fading? What about the extra strength?" He asked, worried for a moment that she was going to collapse from exhaustion from the fight, without the added energy provided by the spells. "Do you need me to get off from you?"

"Heh, Marco, I can carry you without any magic, whenever you want," Jackie boasted, in her normal voice. "Besides, I think the strength has been fading slowly ever since the end of the fight, I think I am only about fifty percent stronger than usual by now. Which I guess is a good thing..."

Prince Jack didn't go into any specifics, but the phrase 'death by Snu Snu' came to Marco's mind. He had to agree it was a good thing that his girlfriend could no longer crush rocks with her bare hands.

"So, do you really want me to..." Marco felt uncomfortable saying it, "... be the girl?"

Jackie raised an eyebrow at him, as if asking if that was going to be too different from their usual fare. Marco had to admit that, even with some practice under his belt now, the blond haired girl had always been the more confident assertive one. And is not like Prince Jack was suddenly going to pull out a golden strap-on from beneath his dark green trousers, or worse. At least Marco hoped he wouldn't, she wouldn't. Marco wasn't sure exactly what Star's magic had done to Jackie, but he knew he himself was exactly as he always was, just in girl clothes. But there was still a difference, in his mind, between whatever it was that their dynamic usually was, and, well, this.

"Yeah, Marco," Jack spoke in her ear, as he gently let her down on the large soft bed, "I want you to be my princess for tonight. And I want to be your prince. Do you want that too?"

"... Yes," Marco responded. To his own surprise, he knew he was being honest. It was very confusing, and scary, and new, and exciting. 

Now, Marco knew that he was more in contact with his feminine side than most guys. Jackie herself was a tomboy, Marco realized as well. She could pull off 'girly' better than almost anyone in school, and yet, she was most at ease being one of the guys. He also knew that there were people for which the gender they were born at never quite, well, fit. He didn't think that was quite his case, nor Jackie's for that matter (although, if it was, he was going to be there for Jack just as much as for Jackie, that was a given). No, he thought, taking stock of the kind of smirk 'Prince Jack' was giving him, or her, or whatever. This wasn't about any personal revelation for either of them, it was play, and it was transgression, and it was fantasy, and it was deliciously strange. Weird-awesome, he thought, remembering Star's phrase.

A moment later, his deliberations were forgotten as he felt Jackie's lips on his neck, her hands roaming his torso atop the pink frilly blouse of his dress. He let himself enjoy it, wondering for a second if being passive was unfairly stereotypical of the role he was supposed to play. But Jackie, no, Prince Jack, seemed to be enjoying it, and Marco was enjoying it, and that was in the end what mattered.

Marco felt Prince Jack unbutton her blouse, he felt her hands on his nipples, then her mouth kissing him there, sucking on them. He imagined for a moment what it would feel to have breasts, to feel the sensations that he had seen reflected in Jackie's and Star's faces whenever he did that for them. What little it did for him physiologically, the image of Jackie ravishing him there was a surprisingly arousing one for the boy.

"Oh, woah," the skateboarder girl almost yelped in surprise, "I didn't know these got hard on you too! Does it feel good?"

Marco chuckled. "Well, it probably doesn't do for me what it does for you... do you want me to, like, pretend to moan or something?"

"Dude, don't ever fake it!" she admonished him, in her normal Jackie tone. "I mean, I don't..."

"Ok, ok, then I got an idea Jacki... eh, Prince Jack," Princess Marco replied. "Can you stand up from the bed? I think you are quite right, my prince, that you earned a reward, fighting for my honor and all..." 

He couldn't help but think to himself that that had been a bit forced, and a lot more meek than what Rebel Princess Marco was supposed to be all about. But it would do. This wasn't a usual situation for the rabble-rouser of St O's anyways, so how was Marco to know what was or wasn't her style to say under the circumstances?

Jackie raised an eyebrow, but did as he asked. "Alright little lady, what did you have in mind?" she said. There was something Harrison Ford-esque about the look she gave him.

Then, Marco slid from the bed, his blouse still open and hanging down to the sides. He literally crawled on his knees to where 'Prince Jack' was and roamed his hands up through her legs. With a swift movement, he undid the button of her trousers and pulled down both the pants and a set of sea green boxer shorts. He looked up and fluttered his eyelashes, then pressed his mouth towards Jackie's crotch and begun lapping at it in wide motions. Slow at first, then faster as he was able to confirm his girlfriend's arousal. Soon his tongue was exploring the length of her lips, and the inside of her folds, and occasionally flicking at her sensitive nub.

"Oh yeah, princess!" shouted Prince Jack. "Suck. On. My. Cock!"

For months after, at night, before going to sleep, Marco would feel slightly and irrationally ashamed, of how hard hearing those words made him that night.

'Princess Marco' kept going at it until Jackie, even with her still ever so slightly bolstered strength, found that her weakened knees made it hard for her to maintain the position. She, or he, or whatever, pushed a hand down and lifted Marco up, motioning him to the bed. 

Just before the boy, who was a princess, sat down, Jackie pulled the skirt of his dress up, and removed the entire thing, throwing it to the side of the bed. She pushed herself out of her boots, and the reminder of her lower garments. In a superman-like move, she literally ripped her own white shirt open, sending buttons flying all over the room with the last of her added strength. Her boobs bounced free in the air.

It should have been the end of the game. She was no longer dressed like a handsome prince, he was no longer dressed like a princess. It should have been the end of Prince Jack and Princess Marco. But it wasn't. Not yet. Not for the next few moments. The moments in which Princess Marco lied down in the bed, blushing and excited, yearning to feel her prince's touch. The moments in which Prince Jack, after winning the battle and rescuing the princess, got his reward, climbing atop his love and embracing her, plunging himself into her. Or that is what it was in his mind, even if the prince's anatomy was rather more concave than convex. But they were united, and Prince Jack was thrusting, and Princess Marco was moaning, and there was no faking in it at all.

It felt liberating, to be able to enjoy the ride and get lost in the sensation, and be loud and unconstrained, in a way he never quite managed to do as a guy. Marco also felt wanted, hungered for, in a way that was different than any he had experienced before. Later he would ask Jackie, and she would tell him how powerful she felt, like she was doing things to him, like she was 'the one screwing you silly'. And Marco would say that she screwed him silly every time they had sex, and she would say that it wasn't the same. But right then, in that moment, Marco knew only his part, and he knew he was getting lost in the sensations, and he was cresting up and up. Finally, he exploded, and as he came, he came loudly and shamelessly, with a whimpering moan.

"That was... intense," Jackie finally said, many seconds after, being the first to recover.

"Yes, yes it was," Marco agreed. "Hey, Jackie, if you ever feel like you should have been a guy, you can tell me..."

"Nah, dude, pretty sure they gave me the right equipment. But I enjoyed playing the part today, even more than I thought I would," she winked at him. "You can also tell me if being Princess Marco feels better than being dude-Marco, I think I'd be ok, if it was you..."

"Pretty sure I am a guy, Jackie."

"A guy who can pull off pink better than me!"

"Hey sister, if you got it, flaunt it!"

They both laughed together at that, then stayed there, silently looking at the ceiling, taking a comfortable pause from a truly insane pair of days. Even by the standards of his life after meeting Star, Marco was pretty sure these last 48 hours had been extraordinarily wild. Once they were back to Echo Creek, he was looking forward to a week or two in which nothing much out of the ordinary happened. At least if ordinary included his impossibly good luck of dating both his childhood crush and his best friend.

"We should get dressed and find Star," Marco finally stated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author Note 1:** And finally a chapter ending in a happy note! Weren't we starting to miss those? :) That said, Star hasn't seen Ponyhead yet, and knows nothing about mommy dear, so...
> 
> \----
> 
>  **Author Note 2:** Please do note that it was none other than Neil Gaiman, in 'Snow, Glass, Apples', who first stated the incredibly obvious: that Snow White is, and has always been, an undead creature of the night.
> 
> \----
> 
>  **Author Note 3:** Alternate ending to the Prince Jack / Snow White fight:
> 
> Snow: "Rebel princesses? A glorious fight against their oppressors? Give me a break! Fine, you win, Princess Marco, Prince Jack, you have unmasked me! Now, die!"
> 
> Star: "Ze WURDO!!"* 
> 
> Time freezes, soundtrack goes silent, Star walks up to Jackie, takes the sword from her immobile hands, decapitates a frozen vampire Snow White, puts sword back in Jackie's hands, exits stage left.
> 
> * Because "Easy Peasy Time Freezy" is too mainstream, or, not mainstream enough...
> 
> \----
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 17: Reveal to Me That Which is Hidden._


	17. Reveal to Me That Which is Hidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> None provided, for some secrets can only be told once.

## Chapter 17: Reveal to Me That Which is Hidden

Were Star to be entirely honest with herself, she would have had to admit she felt a little bit neglected as Jackie carried their boyfriend off into the sunrise, leaving her to deal with the fallout of the duel. In a similar spirit of honesty, however, Star would also have had to admit that Jackie had well and truly earned it. If she hadn't done so by defeating White, then she had by leaving the other two teens alone to sort out their issues the previous night.

It was exceedingly fair that it was now the skateboarder girl who got some time alone with Marco. It was also no lie to say that Star was way happier for him, and for Jackie, than she was sad for herself. She knew that she would have her own opportunities to celebrate with Marco later, when they were back home, after all. Nevertheless, and despite the disguises, having the two of them flee together so publicly, and leave her the odd girl out in front of all these princesses, was a bit irritating. Only a bit, not much; and then only if she were being honest with herself. Star Butterfly was seldom honest with herself.

"Ok, you!" she pointed her wand at the lanky green-eyed brunette, the girl Snow White had called Cass. "Take me to where she put Ponyhead, and don't you dare make a wrong move!"

Star didn't exactly know where the top of tower three was, not from the inside at least, having never been there. The last time they were in St. O's, she simply blew up the transmorfidian crystal with a far reaching blast from the courtyard grounds. That was not, generally, the approach to take when rescuing hostages, and so she could use a guide. White's former two flunkies were at this point the chief candidates, given that they would know for sure where the evil princess kept any prisoners. Of those two, Star had enough experience with the tusked purple princess not to want her anywhere near her face. So that left the other one. Better the devil you didn't know, reasoned Star. After all, strangers were often just friends you hadn't met.

Cass, turned out, was a princess of few words. In response to Star's order and, well, implied threat, she simply nodded, and begun walking towards the tower. She opened the door and guided the mewman up the spiral stairway. Right before she followed her inside, Star observed that the top of the tower had actually been fully replaced: a wooden watchtower now sat atop the stone spire. Whoops! She might have gone a teeny tiny bit overboard with her spells last time she was here!

They walked alone. Not because the princesses of St. Olga's had any particular respect for the privacy of Star's reunion with her best bestie on all of Mewni. But because, Snow White being gone and all, they had decided to throw an impromptu party to celebrate their newly recovered freedom. Despite the vague sense of irritation with which her friends' departure had left her, Star smiled.

It seemed that not only the sun had returned the moment the vampire princess of fairy tale folklore had admitted defeat, but also, just as quickly, the true spirit of the St. Olga's rebel princesses was back as well: that of rebellion not against their parents, or against any perceived higher authority, but only against responsibility itself. Which, all in all, suited Star just fine. Sure, she had to get Ponyhead and Glintwisp back first, but soon enough all five of them would join the party, and then she would get to be as carefree as all the other rebel princesses. Leave dealing with her mom, and whatever she thought of her relationship and her public image, for another day. Another day like, say: never.

"So, I was wondering," she queried her guide, as the two princesses were about halfway up the tower and the cheers outside had begun to become too muted to hear. "Why were you on Snow White's side? I mean, no offense, but, well, you don't seem… I dunno… evil? Guess I can understand if you didn't know what she was, but…"

"Her darkness was apparent to me from the moment I first laid my eyes on her, same as you now," Cass replied. Her tone flat as she walked forward, giving no sign of surprise or concern.

"You mean you knew she was a vampire? You knew then what we know now? But then..." Star pondered, flicking her wand against her chin. Then, suddenly, in realization, she jumped, pointing her wand back at Cass. Her expression went fierce and hard, as she steeled herself for the fight ahead. "So… are you like her? A vampire?! What's your game?"

The girl named Cass laughed mirthlessly. "My game is one with no moves left. I chose the white queen, knowing her to be a cruel one, in the hope that she would forestall greater darkness. Now the black queen has captured this simple pawn of fate, and the whole board is all but lost."

"That didn't make a lick of sense!" protested Star, still not letting her wand down.

"I am afraid it will, in time, Queen Star," Cass added. "But you have little to fear from me now, I have resigned myself to the inevitable."

"I am not a queen!" Star protested. Part of her felt that she had to add 'yet'. But another part of her reminded herself that she might wish to avoid it altogether, if she could. Specially given that on top of every sucky thing about being queen, it apparently also meant she couldn't be with Marco, and Jackie. Not without carefully weighting how every single person in Mewni might feel about what, if you asked Star, was none of their damn business!

The green-eyed girl turned back, looking surprised for the first time. She regarded Star for a good long while, like she were reading the pages of a book rather than the face of a person. "Yes. Perhaps not a queen yet. Without a proper coronation, that title might yet be another's. I could advise you to not leave the space open for those who would usurp it, for they are each and all more overtly cruel than yourself. But it matters not in truth. Your kingdom, and more than your kingdom, is already lost..."

There was something in that voice which made Star feel like a cold wind had passed through her. This whole conversation was getting more disturbing by the minute, and there was something about the way the other girl spoke, that made her think the warnings in her words were not idle threats. They didn't really sound like threats at all, in fact. The brunette spoke regretfully, almost with pity. Star wasn't sure she wanted to keep hearing this, and at the same time, something told her it would be unwise not to listen on.

But Cass spoke no more, and Star didn't feel she was an immediate threat, and so they walked in silence. They arrived to the top of the stairs before the mewman princess could think of any more questions to ask.

\----

"Well, what in the world took you so long, B-Fly!?" shouted Ponyhead, grinning, the instant Star kicked down the door. Cass, holding the key she had just retrieved from her pocket, simply sighed in resignation.

"Flying Princess Pony Head!" yelled Star back, a broad smile extending from one cheek to the other, her worries forgotten in the elation of finding her bestie safe and sound. The reason she always greeted Ponyhead with her full name was lost even to her, an old tradition, probably born from one of their childhood private jokes, now forgotten. "Are you ok? Did she hurt you?"

"Oh, B-Fly, she tried!" Ponyhead assured her, then grinned proudly and winked at her. "But I was way too tough for her, gurrl!"

"Nobody tried anything. Princess White sent her two lieutenants for us, and they simply muzzled her and encased me in a jar," corrected Glintwisp, huffing indignantly at that later fact, "and then dragged us here... Wait! Watch out, princess Star! One of them is behind you!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Star waved the pixie princess' warnings off. "She is with me. Says she is not a vampire. I believe her."

"A what?! Why would she be a vampire? Gurrl... you get into the craziest troubles..." Ponyhead seemed to think for a moment after saying that, and only, it shall be noted, after. "... well, second craziest! After me! But tell me, B-fly, what happened out there?! I am so sad we missed it! You must have really whooped that witch's ass!"

"She was a vampire, not a witch," clarified Star, helpfully. "And well, it wasn't me, the one who kicked her ass was Jackie... I mean, Prince Jack," she corrected herself, a smidgen too late, as she looked at her green-eyed guide. Sure, both other princess had met Jackie on Mewni, and knew the truth, but it wouldn't do to have their former, and perhaps current, enemy, to hear something like that. "You should have seen he... him! S...He was awesome!"

"Yes," Cass confirmed, "the maid in the knightly attire was remarkably nimble, beyond all which could have been fairly expected."

Well, so much for Jackie's secret! The brunette princess' tone was laced with mockery thick enough for even Star to catch on. She stressed the word 'maid', as well as 'fairly'. However it was she knew things, it seemed a matter of fact that she knew well the truth behind 'Prince Jack' and his gifts.

"What? You mean Monkey Face slayed a vampire?" Ponyhead whistled, or whinnied, or something in between, genuinely impressed. "I don't say this often, but those two earth turds are not half bad... But like, don't ever tell them I said that!"

After that, Ponyhead finally managed to stay quiet long enough for Star to tell her and Glintwisp all about Jackie's duel with White. Cass simply walked out to the window, looking outside, seemingly disinterested. Or perhaps in deep thought. It hadn't sounded to the mewman as if the vampire princess was her friend, but still, the green-eyed girl might not have been all that comfortable with Star's retelling of White's defeat, or with the loud cheers and gasps from the other two princesses.

Star, for herself, felt happier the more she told the story. As she spoke about the human girl cutting a bloody gash through the night creature's shoulder, or piercing its chest, she felt a burst of pride and excitement spread from her own heart. She felt joy in describing how the girl kicked away White's sword, then picked her own back from her opponent's body and held her to surrender with the blade against her neck. As she recounted Jackie's final victory, Star felt... she felt invincible. And well, she felt a little turned on, actually.

Wait, no, that wasn't right. She wasn't into Jackie! So why did she...? oh. Oh! Duh. Star knew what Jackie had planned the moment she took off with Marco in her arms. She should have been ready, she should have expected it. But she had been busy thinking a million other things about them, and about getting to Ponyhead, and so, she forgot. She forgot all about the link! Now it dawned on her that the pride, and the joy, and the invincibleness - was that a word? - and of course the, well, excitement, she felt, were all Jackie's own. Or maybe what Marco perceived from Jackie? It wasn't clear how much of the connection extended to the other human teen, as well as it did to their mutual boyfriend. But if it was hitting her this strongly, now rather than before, it meant that Marco and Jackie had probably just arrived to wherever they eloped to, and were about to... Ok, thinking about it definitely was not helping Star calm down!

"Oh! So she just let her go? Just like that?!" exploded Ponyhead as soon as the princess of Mewni got to the end of her tale. "What was Monkey Face thinking?! If it had been me against that White beyoch, I would have just skewered her with my horn! Like this!" she stabbed the air with a flourish of her head.

Star had been besties with Ponyhead long enough to know that no good would come of mentioning that her horn would probably not count as a stake as far as vampires were concerned. Nor would it had been useful to remind her that the reason they were all here was because Ponyhead had been here, had been faced with Princess White and her brief reign of terror, and had chosen the rather sensible course of looking for help. It also did not help that Star was beginning to blush, and feel her breath quicken. For the first time, she was regretting her strange connection to Marco.

"Wait, Princess Star, there is a part that doesn't make sense to me," Glintwisp observed, flying up to the mewman in an attempt to get her diminutive voice noticed against the background of Ponyhead's ever more bold statements about what she would have done if it had been just her against Snow White. "You said that after Princess White, eh, transformed, that your friend was not able to match her in speed, right? Yet, after you froze time, sorry, slowed time, and she rejected your help, she was suddenly able to land multiple hits, and block without magical shielding too. That doesn't sound right..."

"What you talking about gurrl?" retorted Star's bestie. "Clearly she just saw how awesome B-fly was, and trying to not let herself be totally outmatched by my gurl here, she rose to the challenge!"

"Well, I think that could be part of it," Star said, bitting her lip. Part because she had a confession to make, part because an image of Jackie kissing Marco's chest had just popped into her mind. "But I might also have interpreted her request, ah, creatively. Like, she asked me for two seconds, so I gave them to her..." her voice turned to a whisper "... in every minute of the fight after that."

She had sped up Jackie's own personal time by an extra 1/30th for the reminder of the fight. It wasn't much of a push at all, the victory was still Jackie's in the end. At most Star had only given her the chance to match White's unnatural speed. It was not much more on top of all the spells she had cast on her in the beginning. But, since she casted that last one during the duel, rather than in advance, it did technically count as cheating. Star glanced at Cass to see if the brunette protested, but she seemed not to notice. Right, she probably knew already. There was something so very creepy about that girl!

Star couldn't finish that thought, because that very moment she got a jolt of adrenaline as she felt Marco's knees hit the floor. She could see, and feel, herself crawling in all fours towards Jackie, through her boyfriend's eyes, the human girl still dressed in full prince outfit.

"Hey, come think of it, where are Monkey Face and Earth Turd?" pouted Ponyhead. Clearly the implications of Star cheating in the fight with White had gone right over her head. She loved her best bestie on Mewnie, but sometimes the Cloud Kingdom princess could really be rather cloud-headed. "I'd thought they would be with you..."

"Ah," Star gasped. In her mind, she could see the answer to her bestie's question way too clearly. For once, Star decided to go with the truth, or something close enough, "Well, Marco and Jackie are dating and, they probably wanted some time alone in private to, like, comfort each other after the fight and stuff..."

"Sure, Star, but, well, aren't you like their girlfriend too?" Ponyhead asked like it was the most blatantly obvious thing in the world.

Glintwisp's eyes went wide in surprise. Cass stared out of the window, bored. 

"What?! No! Yes!" Star scrambled to respond. "Ok, sort of... But, how do you know?"

"Gurrl, it is kinda obvious from seeing the three of you. I mean, those two go without saying, of coooourse," the other princess explained. "But like, you and Earth Turd had gotten into a fight before I dragged you both here and you patched stuff up - no need to thank me! I am nice like that! - and it was obviously a boyfriend-girlfriend kind of fight, and it's obvious Monkey Face knows about that, so... you three got one of those, eh, arrangements, no? You can tell me! I won't judge, B-fly! I mean, I would have gone with guy-me-guy or at worst me-guy-guy, but..."

So much for cloud-headed.

"Well, yeah, ok, it is something like that," Star conceded. "It's just a thing Jackie came up with, and so I get Marco, and she also gets Marco."

For example, right this very moment, Jackie was getting to undress Marco as he laid on the bed. She was pushing the pink dress Star conjured for him and carelessly throwing it to the floor, and Marco was just looking up at the human girl with nervous anticipation.

"So, with that situation,..." Ponyhead tried, "... you don't feel left out sometimes, B-Fly? Like, who gets him the most?"

"We both do!" Star replied. Except, of course, Jackie got him now. Like, right now. Like she was plunging herself onto his cock right this very second, and Star both knew that and could feel it! It made the princess both indescribably happy and also worried in a vague diffuse manner. And the fact that it made her feel worried made her feel guilty in turn, like she was failing to live up to her end of the bargain. After all, last night it had been her and Marco, with Jackie probably within earshot, and she had not given any sign of resenting that!

"Yeah, but," Ponyhead insisted, "who gets him the mostest?"

"Jackie," Star admitted. "No! We, we both do. And, like, I think we actually spend more time together than the two of them. I mean, we live together..."

"Right," said her friend, "but, like, it doesn't quite feel that way, right B-fly?"

It didn't. Jackie had been with him first. She had gone with him to the place that Star had wanted so much to take him to, the dimension with all the hanging silk ribbons. She was with him now, and it was the two of them who had been prince and princess during this whole charade, while Star took the role of the friend, just as she did at school!

The worst part was that Star knew she was being unfair. Jackie had been with Marco first, and she had gotten him and Star out on their first date! She had gone to the pillow's and silk dimension with him, because Star had sent them there! She had him now, because Star had had him yesterday. And she had taken Prince Jack's role... to fit into the adventures Star and Marco took for granted.

But still, it sometimes felt like Star was playing second fiddle to Jackie as far as Marco was concerned. At least, that's what a petty and mean voice inside her head often told her. It did not help to see them now, in her mind eye. Jackie riding him and he moaning in pleasure, in a way that Star had never heard him moan when they were together. He didn't get lost in pleasure quite that way, not with her. Was that a new thing? Or was it always like that when he was with Jackie? Star couldn't remember.

She often found that her link with Marco made the situation more acceptable. She got to feel good when he felt good, and thus became even more open to cherish the pleasure he got with Jackie. But right now, feeling this as she had to make an effort not to show it, as she tried to convince Ponyhead that she didn't sometimes feel jealous about Jackie still, well, it was most definitely not helping.

"You know, B-fly," her bestie suddenly spoke, sounding surprisingly subdued for Ponyhead, "I think is true you both get him the mostest. Like, it looks like that to me. But I don't feel that's how you feel. You know? And, like, the facts are one thing, but the way you feel about them is the truth too! You get what I am saying?"

"To hide from one's heart is to fear one's own shadow," Cass spoke, without bothering to turn back from the window.

"Yeah, totally, totally... But, I know the way I feel, and I feel great!" smiled Star, unconvincingly.

Privately, she thought that maybe her bestie had a point. It didn't mean she wanted something other than what the three of them had. She had been willing to face up to her mom, and her entire kingdom, for her right to continue things exactly as they were with the two human teens. But perhaps it didn't hurt to admit that, sometimes - not always, but sometimes - she still couldn't be as perfectly chill about the whole thing as Jackie seemed to be. Now, the question was, should she tell Jackie that? Could she tell Marco?

She tried to be as discrete as possible, as the force of the other two teens' climax hit her through the link. A gasp still escaped her lips, drawing looks of puzzlement from Ponyhead and Glintwisp, and what seemed almost like a reproachful look from the green-eyed girl.

"The flipped lovers will be joining us soon," Cass spoke. "But then again, her majesty already knows that."

Whatever else the future had in store for her, Star felt she would undoubtedly be glad to leave St. Olga and all of its creepy new princesses behind. The party below seemed less and less attractive by the minute.

\----

Jackie was glad that they found Star still inside tower three. She was doubly glad that Marco had found a way to get there which did not go out of the building. She was particularly happy they didn't have to traverse the crowded courtyard.

She did not wish to be seen by any of the princesses of St. O's now, mostly because passing as Prince Jack had become rather difficult, now that the buttons of her vest and shirt were both in tatters. Not to mention: whatever magical force had been binding her breasts flat underneath was also gone. She hadn't even realized that that was something included in her transformation, until now. But in retrospect, it was rather obvious; a shirt and vest alone should not have been able to disguise her gender. Not that Jackie was one to brag about something like that, of course.

"Hey Star!" she shouted as soon as they found their friend.

"Hey Jackie!" the princess of Mewni yelled back as she turned around, smiling at them. Jackie gave her an apologetic half smile. Then the mewman spotted their boyfriend, "Hey Marco!"

Star jumped to hug him, and Marco held her tightly in return. It warmed Jackie's heart, every time. She also felt quite happy to notice that Star didn't seem at all bothered by their spur of the moment celebratory escapade. Sometimes it was hard to tell with the princess, the way she always put a happy face either way, but Jackie felt she had gotten better at telling when Star's contentment was sincere. And she thought, and hoped, that was the case today.

After all, this whole thing had been possible only because of Star. How often you met a friend who took you on an inter-dimensional adventure, gave you super-powers and then let you use those super-powers to literally sweep the boy she liked off his feet? Jackie was reputed to be a cool girl, and she would admit she had her moments, but she had to agree with Marco's frequent declarations: Star was the most amazing friend anyone could wish for! And while Jackie was most lucky to have a rather wonderful boyfriend, she also felt quite lucky of having made such a great friend as well.

"Hey, Monkey Face!" Ponyhead came out right after Star, giving Jackie a derisive glare. "Heard you are a skank!"

Jackie rolled her eyes at that, "Heard you got jailed, Horse Head. Shame we cannot just keep you locked up!"

Ponyhead huffed. "But like, glad you are not dead and all..." she finally admitted with an embarrassed turn of her head.

"Same," conceded Jackie, with a chuckle and a knowing nod.

"Awwww, now we are all besties!" shouted Star with a huge grin, as she finally let go of their mutual boyfriend. Both Jackie and Ponyhead made faces that made it quite clear that the mewman was being far too optimistic on that count. "But, well," Star continued, "I think it is time for all us to head back to Mewni, and from there to Earth!"

"You don't have to say it twice," Marco agreed. "I have had enough adventure for a pretty long while. Are the girls going to be ok without us, though?"

"We can take it from here, Princess Marco, ma'am," Glintwisp flew up to him. "We will be alright. It was an honor to meet you and we shall now be doubly in your debt!"

"You are in nobody's debt, my wayward sister!" Princess Marco replied. Then, in his normal boy tone, "But, eh, you know I am not really a princess, right?"

"Of course, Princess Marco," Glintwisp replied with a bow.

"So," Jackie felt she had to ask, "how about her?"

She pointed at the brunette princess. She had noticed her a while back, as she bantered with Ponyhead. But, since Star seemed to be ok with her around, Jackie had figured she was no threat. That said, she was still one of White's goons. Not being a threat to Star Butterfly didn't mean she was not a threat to a crowd of other, less magical, princesses. That was Prince Jack's own expert judgment, as the second liberator of St. O's.

"As the black queen leaves, so my role here shall be ended. None of the princesses you leave behind has anything to fear from me," Cass spoke. "There is only one task left for me, and it shall be done soon. Once the veil is lifted, I shall give voice to the will of the heavens."

Jackie shot Star a questioning look, and the mewman simply shrugged.

"Well, that's settled then. I don't know you girls," Marco spoke then. "But I am starving for some nachos!"

He held his pair of magical scissors in the air. A pair that, if Jackie was to believe Star and Marco's stories - and, given what she had just experienced, she was quite ready to believe just about anything - he had obtained after sixteen years of grueling hardships in a foreign dimension, in pursuit of a sadistic evil sorceress who also happened to be Star mom's good friend. Those scissors were perhaps Marco's most valuable possession, and second only to Star's magic wand. For a moment Jackie wondered if she would ever end up owning her own magical artifact if she hung out with the two of them long enough.

"Nachos sound awesome, Diaz," she agreed. "Well, what are we waiting for? There is no place like home!" She clicked the heels of her princely boots and her boyfriend groaned, even as he smiled just a little bit. 

Marco extended the scissors out in front of himself and cut through the air in a single theatrical motion.

Nothing happened.

His smile turned to a frown as he opened and closed the scissors in mid air, to no avail. He brought them up to his face and looked at them. "Star... my name! It is gone from the blades!"

\----

"What?! Marco, let me see," Star took the scissors from Marco and looked them over. Indeed, his name seemed to have faded out of them. This wasn't right. She had never seen a pair of dimensional scissors fail to open a portal, even on the first try. Were his dimensional scissors on the frizz? Could dimensional scissors even be on the frizz? She closed her eyes and focused, dipping down into herself, stirring the magic around her, and particularly the magic within the metal blades. She found none, no trace of power beyond that which lingered within mundane materials. "Marco, I can't sense any of Hekapoo's stuff in these, are you sure they are the right scissors?"

"Of course they are the right scissors, Star," spoke Marco. He didn't sound angry, but he seemed scared, almost panicking. He took the scissors back from Star and tried again, to no avail, to open a portal with them. Right, Marco had always been very careful with those scissors, ever since he came back from his quest for them. He would lend them to her without question, of course, but otherwise he never let them out of his sight. Star remembered how she felt right after losing the book of spells. Then she thought back to when she thought she had just been forced to destroy her magic wand forever. The realization hit her then, of just what exactly might be going through her best friend's mind. Oh crap! 

She put a hand on the boy's shoulder and shot him a reassuring smile. "It's alright Marco, it will be fine. I don't know what is happening, but I am sure we will find a way to repair those, or get Hekapoo to forge another pair. After all, you already earned them, is not like she can say no to that!" At least, Star hoped that was the case.

"But, eh, Star," Jackie interrupted. "How are we going to get back without the scissors?"

"Mmmhmm," Star thought for a while, wand against her cheek. Maybe she could do something with her magic. But, well, there was a reason even Mewni royalty used dimensional scissors to travel around the multiverse. What if she managed to open a portal but they didn't end up where she thought they would? Or somehow got there only half-way? Or it was instead a twisted shadow of the world they had left behind? Or... no, dimensional magic without instructions and without scissors sounded like a bad idea, the kind of bad idea even Star Butterfly wouldn't try if they had any other option. "Wait, I got it! Ponyhead, you still have a pair of scissors, right?"

"Of course, B-fly!" Ponyhead said, sticking out her tongue and showing her second pair of stolen scissors this year.

Star took them from her, and cut through the air in front of the both of them. Nothing happened. She examined the scissors the same way she had inspected Marco's, but no magic was to be found in these either.

Eventually, they resolved to go to Heinous room. Cass, Ponyhead and Glintwisp showed the way, while the two humans and Star followed. In there they found a dozen other dimensional scissors, all of them equally useless.

"Wait, I got another idea!" shouted Star, forcing herself to smile as she looked at the deflated faces around her. Marco had been trying his best to help, testing the other scissors. But now he just cradled his own in both hands, looking at them with a sad expression. Jackie tried to comfort him with a hug and reassuring words, but Star could tell she was getting worried too. She knew the human girl must be thinking about the possibility that they might not be able to go back to Earth. It was a reasonable fear, particularly considering this was her first time outside her own dimension. But Star was not ready to give up just yet. She looked around. "Of course! There!"

She took off the white sheet covering the mirror. Because, of course, Miss Heinous had to have had a mirror. How else would she know which kids to expect from their parents? Come to think about it, many of the princess' rooms also had mirrors. All they had to do was call her mom, and she would figure out a way to come fetch them! 

Or, even better, they could call Hekapoo herself and ask her what the hell had gone wrong with Marco's scissors and the others here. Now that she thought about it, that was probably the best course of action. Given Star's last interaction with the two of them, she felt Hekapoo might perhaps be more sympathetic to getting them all out of here with minimal fuss. After all, her mom probably didn't even know they had left Mewni, and wouldn't be thrilled to hear so.

"Mirror mirror on the wall, call Hekapoo!" Star commanded. Three dots appeared on top of the crystal surface, as her reflection and that of her friends disappeared from it.

'CALL SUBJECT IS UNREACHABLE' showed the mirror's surface. The princess stared at the words for what seemed like minutes.

"Star," Jackie suggested, cautiously. "Maybe call your mom, then?"

"Sigh. Yeah, yeah, alright..." Star already knew what the next step was, and she suspected Jackie knew she knew. But Jackie also probably knew Moon and her had, well, unresolved issues to discuss, as Star's mother would put it. "Mirror mirror on the wall, call Mom!"

'CALL SUBJECT IS UNREACHABLE'

"This, this is bad, Star," Marco finally spoke. "This is bad and is all my fault..."

"How is this your fault?" interjected Jackie.

"Well, my scissors should have gotten us out of here, or else I shouldn't have been so confident in them, and planned a backup, or..." Marco seemed to realize he was being silly, for once, "... ok, it just feels like my fault."

"Maybe it is mine," said Jackie smiling faintly, "maybe it had to do with defeating White, or with not killing her, and now we are all sealed in this dimension with her?"

"No, Marco, Jackie. It is my fault," spoke Star in a resolute tone. Her face turned into a scowl. "It is always, ultimately, my fault. I got you two to Mewnie first and now here, and I am going to get you both back to Earth. But first, we need to know what is happening, and I think I know just the way..."

Her eyes went narrow, and she could see in the now inactive mirror that she looked just a little bit scary. Marco and Jackie seemed nervous, but not too concerned, while Cass went pale and scrambled to get her back against the wall, as far from Star as she could without leaving the room. In retrospect, Star shouldn't have missed that warning sign.

However, right now, the princess knew just what she had to do. She had to know what exactly had happened to the scissors or to this place, why the mirror was also not working, and where the hell was Hekapoo during all this. She began the only spell that could offer her answers now, the one spell which could show her the hidden truth.

"I summon the all-seeing eye..."

A gust of chilly wind began swirling around the room, as if the windows and door were not closed, as if the sky was not sunny and clear. It lifted her hair up in the air around her. She focused, with all her might, on her desire to learn what was going on, to find a way back home.

"Eh, Star, is this a new spell?" asked Marco, nervously, "Is it safe?"

"... to tear a hole into the sky..."

Her half crystal glowed bright green. Cass gasped. A sense of dread began growing in the back of Star's mind. That sensation was new. She had casted the All-Seeing Eye spell many times before, and it did often feel just slightly wrong. A sensation she had attributed either to the purposes she tended to use it for, or to the fact that it was dark magic after all.

"...reveal to me that which is hidden..."

But this time the sensation was different. It was not just slightly wrong, there was something awful about the magic that was flowing through her wand now, and through her body. Alarm bells rang in Star's mind. But she found, to her surprise, that she could not stop now, even if she tried.

"... unveil to me what is forbidden!"

A huge purple vortex opened up before all of them, tendrils of green energy slowly creeping from within, the view on the other end of the portal a dark haze. Star tried to shut down the spell, to drop her wand, to dip down. But nothing worked. She was paralyzed in place, and from the looks of it, so were her friends. After a long tense instant, the view on the other side of the portal became clear.

It was Earth. More specifically, it was Marco's house. Even more specifically, it was her room. On the other side of the portal, a perfect copy of Star was looking at them upside down, as she laid on the floor with her feet on top of the edge of the bed, playing with her wand, moving it forward and backward slowly.

Star tried to open her mouth to speak to her idle look-alike, but she could not even move her own lips. It was like having her mind pulled into slowed time by someone else, the way she had done to Jackie earlier, only even more restricting. She could barely move her eyes around, glancing at her human friends to see the shocked expressions they wore. Then, she saw the image inside the portal jump to sit in the bed, and realized to her horror what she was seeing. She didn't know, she never knew, that the All-Seeing Eye could show her scenes far away in time as well as space. But why this? Why now?!

"I summon the all-seeing eye, to tear a hole into the sky," spoke the other Star. She could hardly believe she was seeing this again. It was wrong. A shameful memory under the best of circumstances, and even worse under these circumstances. Marco and Jackie were here with her! If they found out... no, oh no! Not like this! "Reveal to me that which is hidden." She saw the Star in the portal's wand glow emerald as a second portal opened within the first. "Unveil to me what is forbidden."

"Well, Marco, what do you think?" came Jackie's voice from somewhere outside either vortex. The past version of the princess adjusted the portal, so that they were all now looking, through two different sets of shadowy clouds, at Jackie standing in only her bra, that fateful night, seemingly so long ago. Star looked at her friend, her real present friend, frozen in place with her, and saw her eyes grow wide with surprise. Oh no! no! No, no, no, no, no! This wasn't happening!

But it did, all of it! They remained held in place by the spell as the smaller vortex showed Marco and Jackie's first intimacies, their private jokes, their awkwardness (mostly his, but sometimes hers as well). The larger portal showed Star, gazing at them with an expression that she now felt looked too... well, too eager, perverted even. She felt ashamed, and disgusted at herself. A glance at Jackie and Marco told her they were both shocked, and confused, and going pale.

"Do you, do you do this often? Invite boys up, I mean?"

"No. First time ever. You?"

"No! I mean, yes! I mean no! I mean, first time too. With girls, I mean. Not with boys. I mean, not that I have done it with boys either..."

"... I kinda practiced on Star's bras..."

"Oh, Marco... you are doing... a-mazing!"

"You know, it is better if you play with them. Like this,"

"Eh, Jackie. How far are we planning on taking this?"

"You know where my mouth just was, right?"

"Well, if you had said you were with me only for the sex that would also have been good for my ego,"

"By the way, Safe Kid, do you have any condoms around?"

"Just fuck already!" Star heard herself yell, through the portal. Had she really said that aloud? If her face hadn't been pale as a corpse with guilt and fear, it would have been boiling red with embarrassment.

Worse, she knew what was coming. Soon they were all watching Marco entering Jackie, trusting into her as they both sweat and moaned. They were watching Star herself laying on the bed, being fucked by some magical echo of Marco. It was beyond bizarre, and so embarrassing that Star wanted her wand to explode right there and then and erase them all from the face of whatever dimension St. O's was in. But, more than anything, she felt guilt, guilt at having seen that, and at now showing it, against her own will, to the other two teens. And to Ponyhead, Glintwisp and Cass as well! Once it was finally done, Star could only manage to look at the floor in shame. But the Star in the vision had not averted her eyes, and so she could not claim to be as ashamed at what she had done as she was at having been caught.

"Marco... this is probably weird timing, but can I ask you a question about Star?" she heard the Jackie in the mirror ask. Fortunately, the image faded out then, not showing Star creeping in on their private conversation as well as their first time. At last, it was over.

Except, instead of the spell fading and their movement being restored, the scene simply changed. It showed her and Marco, older Marco, floating in the clouds. It showed Hekapoo's smiling face for only a moment, and then the image broke like shattered glass.

It changed then to a dark night outside, of even darker implications. A small river flowing under a stone bridge.

"Then, Star..." she heard Tom's voice through the portal, "... get on your knees."

And the spell showed them Star fellating Tom, and at the same time flashes of Jackie doing the same to Marco, back in their bed. It didn't show a continuous scene now, but jumped between one and the other, recreating that awful night as Star had experienced it, where she saw the two humans half of the time as she herself had sex with her ex-boyfriend. In the end, the spell showed all four climaxing together. Each of their faces appeared in turn, large and clear through the vortex, as they cried out.

"Staaar!" she heard Tom grunt, hungrily.

"Maaarco!" she heard Jackie moan, joyously.

"Staaar!" she heard Marco shout, lovingly.

"Maaarco!" she heard herself cry out, wishfully.

Jackie's face, the real Jackie, the current Jackie, looked horrified. Marco seemed hurt and confused. Star's eyes were crying through the paralysis, it was painful to force each tear out, but impossible to contain them.

The show did not end there, but it showed bits and pieces of every time Star had been with Marco, and of every time she had sensed or seen him and Jackie through the link, including this very morning. Most of the time, it was clear Star was not only aware of it, but actively seeking the link, closing her eyes to concentrate, looking for a quiet space... touching herself. They might yet believe the truth: that she did not control those visions, that she could not fully shut them down, that she had not actively cast the spell to spy on them again. But there was no way she could convince them that she hadn't known, or that she hadn't enjoyed what she saw, that she hadn't repeatedly violated their privacy, and lied to them by omission.

The images in the portal became very different now, and in a way even more disturbing. A web of emerald strings, bright as lightning, constricting someone she couldn't quite see. Star's book of spells burning. Glossaryck burning! Wait, was that Ludo being crushed under a stone pillar? The forest of certain death, flowing beneath the view of the vortex. Mewni castle.

Star felt anger. A hate that burned cold like nothing she had ever felt before, and it took her just an instant to realize that it was not, could not be, part of her own feelings. Something was angry at her, angry that it was being sought, spied on, touched. Something that had not cared at all when exposing all of Star's deepest and darkest secrets, but which would not allow her to peer into its own. The Seeing-Eye portal came crashing down, and Star felt a sensation like being punched in the stomach... by Princess White's rock-shattering fists. 

She hit the wall and collapsed onto the ground, her wand falling down in the middle of the room and rolling away from her, finally inert. Every inch of her body felt like an army of ants were crawling over it. She could not move, could not speak, could hardly breathe. Everyone else seemed to become unfrozen at just that time.

"Star...!" she heard Marco and Jackie shout in unison.

"... are you ok?!" asked Marco.

"... what the hell was that?!" yelled Jackie, trembling. Her eyes sharp even as they welled up with moisture.

"Ah, ahem," Ponyhead flew up in front of Star, "that was, that was clearly fake! Something went funny with the spell... right, B-fly? And, and..."

"That wasn't fake," stated Jackie. Her tone suddenly ice-cold. Her expression rigid and controlled, even as tears flowed from her eyes.

"Jackie, ah, maybe right now is not the best time. We can ask after we are sure she is alright..." noted Marco. But Star noticed he also seemed to avoid looking at her, his face was also red with embarrassment. Or with anger?

"No, Marco!" yelled Jackie. "She is fine. I know very well what Star can take. She can answer now! Please, step aside, Ponyhead, this doesn't involve you..."

"We should go," said Glintwisp to the unicorn princess. The floating head looked around and nodded apprehensively in response, and they made their way towards the exit.

Star felt herself recover, ever so slowly, "Jackie, oh Jackie, I am so sorry, I never meant for you to..."

"See any of that?!" asked Jackie. "Know that you have been spying on me this whole time?! Honestly, Star, that makes it worse. I feel... I can't even describe it... used? toyed with? violated? Come on, I trusted you! Trusted you enough to open up about how I felt, to want us to be friends and... and... you know... to be alright with you and Marco? To feel safe about you dating him too. Trusted the both of you... I... why didn't you tell us?"

As the physical pain began to subside, the weight of her guilt, and the realization that she had really hurt Jackie, quickly outpaced the magical resonance as the source of Star's anguish. "Jackie, I am sorry, I am really really sorry. But... would you have said something in my place? I can't even begin to think how..."

"Yes, Star, I would have," Jackie responded without a thought. "Marco would have too. Come on Star, I shouldn't have to explain to you how all that stuff is really not cool!"

Star murmured something in response, it was a lame apology, and she knew it was so even before she was done saying it.

"What was that?" asked Jackie.

"I said," Star repeated, ashamed, "that I wouldn't have gone out with Marco, or ended up in this weird-awesome relationship, if not for... well... for what you just saw..."

"Star," Jackie looked down at the floor, suddenly in a calmer, but not exactly friendlier, tone. "You could have just asked. At any time, you could have asked. I know it wouldn't have been a normal thing to do, and I can see why that would have been scary. But, well, it wouldn't have been like this! It would have been something Marco and I at least could consider, and agree to. Rather than us having been exposed for your entertainment, without our knowledge, without being asked..."

Star blinked. Had it truly been as simple as that? If she had spoken with Marco, or with Jackie, would all this have happened, even without the link?

"And, Star... even after that, you could have said something afterwards, that day at the dinner, perhaps, or any of the afternoons we were all at Marco's home... ah, but maybe..." she glanced at Marco, and he simply shook his head. He was still looking down at the floor, silently. "I see. Why? Why didn't you say anything Star? To either of us? I trusted you. Marco trusted you. Why didn't you trust us?"

"I do trust you!" protested Star. "I was, I was ashamed, and weirded out. I wanted to tell you, but, but..." She realized that the boy hadn't said a word in a while, "Marco, yesterday you said that you were fine with learning my secrets whenever you learned them, right? That I didn't have to tell you all back then? That it was ok if some of it was a surprise?"

Star knew, right after she had said that, that it was the wrong thing to say. She hadn't asked Marco how he felt, she had just asked for forgiveness. No, not even that. She had called him on his promise for blanket absolution, without first even asking what he thought of... of everything he had just seen.

"Star, I..." he begun. Then he paused. He looked at the mewman princess, crying in the floor, then at the human girl trembling with anger and hurt. "You were watching us, right? Every time? This morning too?"

Star nodded, words stuck in her throat.

"Then, are we not allowed secrets as well? Only you?" Star's eyes went wide as saucers and she felt hollow inside. Marco didn't sound angry. It was much worse than that. He sounded distant. And he was still not looking at her. He walked up to Jackie and held her tightly. Then he spoke, evenly, "can we talk about all this later? We still need to find a way home."

But Star didn't want to go home anymore. She wanted to go back in time, to the moment before she cast the seeing-eye spell again, or maybe further back than that, to the time at which she might have told Marco and Jackie of the link, without coming off as someone who disrespected and toyed with those she loved. Without being a liar, and a creep. Jackie had been right, Marco would have told her, immediately, if it had been him seeing her through the link and he knew what it was. The human girl would have probably told her as well. What did it say about Star, that she hadn't?

Cass walked slowly towards her. Honestly, the mewman had forgotten about the last remaining princess in the room. But now the brunette was almost in front of her, and she extended a finger to point at Star. Her eyes had rotated up in their sockets, so that she could no longer see the green irises. When the words came out of her mouth, it didn't sound like her voice at all. It didn't sound human. It was a chorus of deep echoing voices that came out of the frail looking girl.

Star understood then, why Cass knew things she had never been told, and why she spoke in riddles. Mewni had legends, as did Earth, about vampires. Mewni also had legends, as did Earth, about seers and prophesies.

"Behold the dark queen ascending,  
her will the thread of fate unraveling.  
Behold the force of evil incarnate,  
borne of deepest heart's desire."

Thus spoke the girl called Cass, as she kept her finger pointed at Star, declaring her evil beyond reckoning. The words felt true, in a piercing way. They were not true because they were perceptive. Nor even because Star herself was already questioning her own moral compass. They were true because they were prophecy, true in a fatalistic sense, and Star knew that, even if she wasn't sure how she knew it.

"Only surrender may undo the shadow,  
but the price shall be too high to pay.  
In the end the world itself must shatter,  
and death shall be the one to claim her."

Star rose to her feet in one jump. She could not stand it any more: the unearthly voice of the other princess, the looks of confusion in her human friends' eyes, the guilt about what she had done, the horror about what she might one day do, about what she was just told she would become. Without bothering to even get her wand back, the princess of mewni, the "force of evil incarnate", took off running out of that dreadful room. As she fled, the thing that broke her heart was that, this time, she didn't even hear Marco call after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _She's a princess winning battles_   
>  _Through the break of dawn_   
>  _Don't worry when it's night_   
>  _'Cause she will keep the lights on_   
>  _Ohhhh, there goes a shining star..._
> 
>  
> 
>  **Coming up next** : _Chapter 18: With Ache in Her Chest, With Tears in Her Eyes_
> 
> **See the first comment below, to find out that which is hidden, to unveil what is forbidden**


	18. With Ache in her Chest, With Tears in her Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our dear Star is sad, a villain is redeemed, a witch is quite clever, yet not clever enough, and we bid adieu to St. Olga's and all of its princesses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, this chapter was fully written (but, of course, not fully edited) before the release of SvtFoE Season 3 Episode 5 and beyond, and thus contains no spoilers for any Star Vs episodes after Battle For Mewni. Any similarities with recent episodes from canon is purely prophetic.

## Chapter 18: With Ache in her Chest, With Tears in her Eyes

A girl with no friends, and no loved ones left, skulked through the bleak cliffs surrounding Saint Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses; slowly making her way among thick and prickly tangles of dead tree branches. As she did so, the evil child only thought of what had gone wrong, what she would do differently if she had only another chance. She had been thinking, and fleeing, for hours. Now the sky was dark once more, but the end of the day did not erase the damage done.

As her mind was balancing, for the eleventh time, the ledger of all of her mistakes, she heard a sobbing sound from just ahead. Cautiously, she approached the source of the noise. It came from a small valley clearing. A vulnerable position. Or perhaps a trap. Not wanting to take any chances, the girl got only as far as the edge of the dried woods, and with a swift movement jumped atop one particularly tall, particularly sturdy, elm. As it landed, her lithe body made nary a sound, none that would be heard over the ceaseless weeping.

The figure below was familiar to her. Even so, it took her a moment to recognize her now, without the long horns and the ridiculous fake eye-patch. The sniveling blond mess had curled herself into a ball in the middle of the clearing, and was likely in the process of crying herself to sleep. She could see her hands bracing her knees, as she shivered in the freezing night wind. Perched atop the tree, Princess White smiled a long wicked smirk. Star Butterfly had no wand on her person.

It would have been easy, and oh so satisfying, to drink the mewman princess dry of her sweet young blood. A palliative for her hunger, and for her bruised pride. But White recalled promising to leave the other princess alone, as part of the terms of her surrender to Prince Jack, the giant killer. White was a creature of the told story, a being of tale and myth, and she knew the traps fate and legend usually put in the path of those who violated an important promise. 

There was a kind of magics, White knew, which acted like contracts with the world and its powers, and were enforced by potencies far beyond mortal comprehension. Cassandra's prophesies had been thus. It was that the reason why she had found the brunette so indispensable an ally, despite her infuriating crypticness. Invoking similar powers, she had managed to stave away the sun from her temporary kingdom, claiming the ancient right of domain. But her domain had been broken the second she declared herself to lose the duel she had accepted to fight for its control. That meant her word and her promises had at least some weight for the ancient powers. It followed then that she should think it twice before seeing herself forsworn over a petty act of vengeance.

She had promised to leave Jack, 'and Princess Marco, and the mewman, and all the princesses of St. Olga's alone'. Was there a loophole there? Anything she might try that would count as technically keeping her promise, while achieving the spirit of her revenge? Surely, the child was mewman, and the only one in St O's, so she could not sneak out of her vow there by claiming its object was ambiguous. If she had sworn to leave her alone, what was there left, that she could do to her with impunity?

While she thought, a second figure entered the clearing, from the 3 o' clock relative to where she kept watch. White ducked and hid further among the dry branches, as she saw a boy approach. It was not Jack, and certainly no princess.

"Hey, Star... are you alright?" the boy asked. 

White noted the concern in his voice. A friend of the mewman perhaps? Well, now that she thought of it, killing her friends did certainly match the wording of a promise 'to leave her alone', quite nicely. Ah, the beauty of poetic irony! The vampire princess grinned at the thought. She coiled herself over the tree, ready to strike at Star's friend, to deprive the other princess of his company, to multiply her misery without touching a golden hair of her head.

She did not attack.

It took her a moment of hesitation, a second to appraise the newcomer, to decide firmly against that first plan. For even if you were a princess of skin cold as snow, and lips red as blood, and ancient darkness of fairy tale lore, it was nevertheless unwise to attempt to prey on a boy with skin of gravestone tint, and burning red coals for eyes, and long taurine horns. No, it was not wise at all to ambush a demon.

\----

"Tom...?" Star looked up at him in surprise, her eyes red with crying. A moment later, she turned her dulled gaze back to the floor, as if he weren't there. She continued whimpering, more softly, but no less sorrowfully, than before. 

She seemed so sad, and so defeated. The demon prince could not recall ever seeing her in such a state, not even the night of... No. He forced himself to think of anything but that. This was already going to be awkward enough as it was. For once in his life, Tom wanted to be the ex Star deserved, to be something to her other than her biggest regret, her biggest mistake.

"Star," he spoke. He felt the urge to call her 'Starship' and squashed that feeling with all the wrath of the Astray One himself. "I... heard what happened, some of it. Do you want to talk?"

"No," Star replied. "Marco hates me now, and Jackie hates me now, and... and I hate you."

To hear that, spoken so plainly, hurt almost as much as that damned anger spell had back then, the day of the concert. In some ways, it hurt even more. But now it was not the time for him to indulge his ever-burning anger, or his own self-pity. Tom breathed deeply, and kept his temper in check, without bothering to count this time. He just didn't have the time for that. Instead, he made himself to suppress his inner fire, through force of will alone.

"Star, Jackie is, well, she is angry, but I don't believe she hates you," Tom spoke softly, as he sat besides Star and cautiously draped an arm around her. She did not react. He knew well enough that it was more of an indicator of how apathetic she felt right now, rather than any sign that she welcomed his touch. Still, he couldn't help but feel happy to be holding her, then angry at himself that he still felt so.

Tom forced himself to stay the course. He had promised, before coming out to look for Star, that he would not lie, he would not plot, he would not manipulate. He had promised that he would not put any moves on Star, no matter what. That he was to be here out of concern, and out to help the mewman, as any friend would. A friend and nothing more, if the princess was willing to accept even that from him. It went against his nature, the same way calm went against his nature. And yet, he had long ago mastered calm, nonchallantness, at least most of the time. It took constant effort, but it was effort he was willing to undertake.

"And I know Marco doesn't hate you, he..." The words dried his throat, like puking dense burning lava, "... he loves you, Star."

"He hates me, Tom!" yelled Star, tossing his arm off of her and turning her back towards him. "And he is right to do so! Guess you have also heard about me being evil, no? Since you seem to know everything that has happened to me lately!?"

She sounded angry. Anger was good. It was much better than hollow defeated sadness. Maybe what Star needed was to hit him again with the dark vortex spell, to let the anger and the hurt out of her system. Tom was surprised to discover, that after all that had happened between the two of them, he would gladly let her do that again. Except this time, he wouldn't mess it up by expecting any kind of affection from her in return. Star didn't love him, and she didn't want him. But if she indeed did simply hate him, then by the deceiver, may that hate be put to a good a use!

"Evil is relative, Star, and I say so with some personal understanding of the concept. I also have been called evil, after all," Tom said as he shrugged. "From what I heard, you were less than forthcoming with one of your magical mishaps, and then got some ambiguous seer mumbo jumbo thrown at you. Big deal!"

It was, actually, a bigger deal than he was making it out to be, but Star didn't need to hear that now. Prophecies were one time a blessing and ten times a curse, and it was always near impossible to untangle them until they came to happen. Sure, the girl had called Star "the dark queen ascending" and "the force of evil incarnate", but Tom had a hard time seeing either of those come to pass, knowing Star like he did. Not that he would care if Star ever went dark, not really. Good or evil, she would still be herself, and that was all that mattered in his book. He was far more concerned about the fact that the prophecy also said that "death shall be the one to claim her". That he could visualize, all to clearly. Tom Lucitor, prince of the underworld, was determined not to let that come to pass.

"Tom, you are evil," Star said, giving him a look of disgust. "And... well, I didn't think so back when we first met, or when we were together. I only realized it way too late. So, I think is very possible, well, that my moral compass is so very twisted that I can't even realize that I am evil too, or turning evil. That, maybe, I have done something truly beyond the pale. Jackie seems to think so. And another reason I might be evil, is that I actually know for a fact that right now I am not nearly as concerned about the fact that I may become a dark queen when I grow-up-than-I-am-concerned-about-Marco-hating-me!"

Her words became quicker and quicker as she got to the last part, until there was a torrent of them stumbling one atop the other out of her mouth. In the end, it almost seemed she only paused because, near the end, she had no choice but to take a breath of air. Tom sighed. There was only one way to get to her then, one way only. It was not what he would have preferred.

"Star, how do you think I know all of this? What happened back at Saint O's, and the prophecy?" the demon prince asked her calmly.

"That's obvious," Star countered. "It is because you have been spying on me, again. Like evil people do! Like I did to Marco and Jackie..."

"Actually, Star, is because Marco called me, and asked me to find you," he admitted. 

For the first time, Star looked up and met his gaze, eyes filled with surprise and just the slightest dash of hope.

\----

Princess White felt like she was going to puke listening to the two of them. So, the girl had managed to annoy her friends and now felt bad about it? And now the demon was, for some unfathomable reason, trying to reassure her it didn't mean she was a bad person? Since when did a demon cared if someone was a bad person? If anything, he should be welcoming the fact that the girl thought herself evil. That self-perception made it so much more likely that she would fall into the fiend's clever snare. White was sure, she could sense it in his body language, that the purple fiend lusted after the princess. It defied all she knew about the nature of the underworld denizens that he didn't take her by force. Demons were, after all, creatures often slave to their own base emotions: lust, wrath, envy, and so forth.

It took her only an instant, after she let her bored mind tune out their conversation, to notice the rustling of the leaves a hundred or so paces away from where she was perched. The movement was almost in a perfect line with the angle from which the demon had come into the clearing.

Curious, the vampire slid unseen through branch and root, a quarter way around the clearing, and a short walk away from it. There she found a girl with hair almost as black as hers, with eyes dark green, and a black cloak around her. Her body seemed to rest against the tree, giving her back to the children in the clearing, just far away enough not to overhear even through the quietness of the night. She deliberately pretended that she was ignoring the other two teens, but her face was one of apprehension. In front of the girl, uncomfortably nested between scorched trees, was a skeletal horse, chained to a black unearthly carriage.

White gave herself a few minutes to examine the situation. She could kill the girl, of course, but to what end? To steal the black hearse? That she might do. If the vehicle belonged to the demon, then it was a way for her out of this forsaken place. And, she reminded herself, into an even more forsaken one. No, that would not do, not unless she was sure she could direct the carriage somewhere other than the underworld. She was bound to end there eventually anyways, and was in no hurry to make that trip.

Then, perhaps, it was better to learn more of the situation first. She drew her fangs back. Her face human again, and not just human. Snow White had once been called the fairest in all the land. Now, in what was left of her rebel princess attire, she figured she would look like a pretty rad punk girl. No way to tell for sure, of course, not without a reflection. She hadn't had one of those for a pretty long while.

"Oh, sweet ride!" spoke White excitedly as she made her way out of the trees in front of Janna. Her raised voice carefully measured to be just below the nearby demon's threshold of awareness, even if the mewman child shouts were to suddenly stop.

"Ah, it's alright, I suppose," the human girl shrugged. She seemed to inconspicuously move an arm to the inside of her cloak. Looking for a weapon? White thought it unimportant. "And who are you supposed to be?"

"Princess Lumi," she responded without hesitation. It was a name she had used before. "I guess you have heard of St. O's, right? Used to be super lame, now is a total party school. Which, I guess is a different kind of lame..."

"Right," Janna agreed. "Tell me about it. So you are like, a troublemaker princess?"

"Eh," White gave a non-committal shrug. "I guess. I mean, clearly you get into some trouble yourself," she observed, pointing at the carriage, "not that you seem to mind. Are you the demon's... servant?"

White's mask was intended to look like a far more naive girl than she herself, trying to appear to be shrewd and conspiratorial. The dark haired human smiled in return, taking the role of the more experienced one, exactly as White had hoped. No better way to make someone vulnerable, than to trick them into feeling strong.

"What makes you think it is not the other way around?" Janna asked.

'Well, for one, kid, that is clearly a demon prince. For another, I can see the chain marks on your wrists,' thought White. But Lumi's face reflected only surprise and what was intended to read as badly concealed admiration. 

"Oh, are you a powerful witch, then? You must be! Wow, that's actually pretty cool," she spoke. The girl seemed like the type to be amenable to flattery. "If you are the one in control, then perhaps I could... no, I mean, we just met, it is too much to ask. But could I maybe see the inside of, of that...?" White pointed towards the infernal carriage.

"Sure," the foolish human conceded with a smile. That's when White noticed the flickering purple light emanating from inside the velvet cloak. "And, after that, why don't I give you a ride to Earth myself so that you can feast on the blood of all my classmates? I mean, I'd consider it if it was only Brittney, maybe even Sabrina..."

"What?" Lumi reacted with confusion and surprise to the human's words. She paused as if to try and comprehend what the other girl was saying. Inwardly, White used that requisite pause, that pretended hesitation, to attempt to figure out how it was she had been found out. The game was clearly up, even if it didn't hurt her to keep the charade a few more seconds. Was there anything she had forgotten in her disguise? "You are joking, right? I mean, jeez, I know I don't dress like a goody-two-shoes, but you seriously have been spending too much time with demons if you think..."

"Oh, come on, that's just sad. Just drop the damn act," Janna interrupted her. "Seriously, how naive do you think I am?! You are obviously that vampire bitch Marco was talking about!"

Ah, it seemed White's reputation had preceded her for once. She supposed that would explain her failed bluff. When Janna took her left hand out the cloak, a small sphere of burning purple flames danced in her palm. She raised her right as well, and half of the flames jumped to that hand. In an instant, both spheres had grown again to the size of a large man's fist.

Princess Lumi's mask fell in an instant at that point, and White's features, still human, turned sharp and cruel. She smirked. "Naive enough to oppose me openly. Which makes you at best a clever fool!"

\----

"Marco called you?" Star asked, looking at Tom. That didn't sound right, why would Marco send Tom to her, of all people? Specially after what he knew from her Princess Song. But, but, it meant that Marco cared, didn't it? That he wanted to have someone look after her, even if he himself didn't want to see her. Oh, well, he had always been a sweetheart, taking pity on the evil wretch that was the wicked princess of Mewni...

"Star, he, and Jackie too, searched for you the entire afternoon, until it went dark. Then they started to get truly worried, so they went back to Heinous room, and they called me on the mirror," Tom said. "I am sorry, I would have been here sooner, but I insisted on knowing the whole story before I set out to find you. Then, when I heard how she had spoken to you, I wasted even more time in saying things to that Jackie girl that I don't really believe, but which made me feel much better. I recall a particularly good one about her having sexual congress with a dolphin..."

The mewman chuckled. She felt almost surprised that she could still chuckle. But the knowledge that her friends still cared about her was enough to lift her spirits considerably. Wait, was laughing about something like that something an evil princess would do?

"So, basically, they are angry, Star," Tom admitted. The princess felt her heart sink back into despair for a moment. "But they don't hate you, and they certainly don't think you are evil. Ask Marco if you can't take my word for it. Just like this: 'Hey, Marco, do you think I am evil, or did I just fuck up?'"

Star thought about it for a moment. Yeah, she had fucked up, and she had doubled down on her fuck ups by not telling either of them sooner. She put herself in Jackie's shoes, and she knew she would have been hurt, and Jackie was more sensitive about her privacy than Star was. But feeling hurt, and feeling angry, and yelling at someone, didn't mean you considered them irredeemably evil, or even that they were no longer your friends. 

She thought about Marco, he had clearly been put on the spot there, between both of his girlfriends. He had just lost his most priced possession, and had just wanted to figure out a way home. He didn't hate her, not really. Star could almost see him, calling out after her just a moment too late for her to hear, then spending the entire day searching for her. 

Both of them would be worried, maybe even feel guilty, and here she was wallowing in self-pity rather than owning up to what she had done to hurt them. Well, fuck up number three.

"I, I think I know the answer," Star dried her tears with one arm. "But I am going to ask, just in case."

"Good," Tom remarked. "Now, Star, not asking for anything between us anymore, not even forgiveness, but... do you truly think I am evil, or did I just fuck up?"

"You fucked up, Tom," Star said after taking a moment to think it through. "But I also fucked up that night. Tom, I don't want you to think there is any chance of us getting back together, because, I am sorry, there isn't. But I do forgive you, and I hope you forgive me, and if all that works for you, I would want us to be friends."

"Can't imagine anything better," said the demon boy, with a broad smile.

"Friends?" asked Star, nervously, lifting a fist. 

"Friends!" Tom fist-bumped her. 

Wait, was she the last person in all dimensions to learn that gesture? Guess that's one downside of growing up with a bestie with no fists to bump. Speaking of which, "Oh, Tom, what about Ponyhead?"

"She was with them too," noted Tom. "And angrier at Jackie than even I was. Say what you want about that pain in the butt, she is fiercely loyal."

"Yeah, she is," Star admitted, feeling a lot better now that she knew she had not lost all her friends. If anything, she had perhaps regained one. There were plenty of amends to make, but well, she could always bake the two humans cookies when they all got back to Earth! Ok, maybe not cookies. Based on previous experiences that was not a good idea. Wait! How where they going to get back to Earth? The scissors still didn't work, the mirror didn't work. One moment! "Hey, Tom, you said they called you from the mirror?! I thought it was broken."

"No, it reached me just fine," said Tom with a quick shrug. "Maybe it is not reaching Mewni for some reason? Either way, we can check, right now. My carriage is just that way, and it got me here. It will probably take us to Mewni too unless there is something else wrong, no scissors required."

\----

"Those magics did not impress me eight hundred years ago, when I was young and foolish. They certainly do not impress me now." the vampire princess scoffed at Janna's purple blazes. "If you truly know who I am, you know you cannot hope to defeat me."

The troublemaker felt her head burn in pain with the concentration required to keep the magical fireballs under control, to guide the forces she had stolen from her undead enemy, from her magical friend, and from her demonic lover. She knew it was just a whiff from their power, in each case, so little that they had not noticed her reaching for it. It was, Janna thought, amused, a bit like taking five dollars out of Marco's wallet for lunch. As long as she did it only occasionally, neither would realize anything was missing.

She had considered playing along a bit longer. Let the vampire princess believe she had bought her pretense, maybe try to get some information out of her. But there was little she could ask 'Lumi' where the response wouldn't be predictably useless. She could have just made excuses not to show her the inside of the carriage, to stall until Tom came back, but then she wouldn't have a chance to ask the real White any questions. As soon as Star and Tom got involved, the evil princess would almost certainly flee, otherwise she would have gone to the clearing in the first place.

"But I don't have to beat you," Janna observed, trying to match Snow White's smirk with an evil grin of her own. "I only need something to hold you at bay for long enough for me to cry out for help. Then Tom and Star will come, and kick your undead ass, Vladislava."

Even that was not a given, that she could hold her off long enough to cry for help. She had heard, from Jackie, that the evil princess was fast, impossibly fast. She also knew she had gone toe to toe with Star's magic, or at least with some of her spells cast in advance. Janna knew her own magic wasn't even in the same ballpark. Maybe her spells would cause the creature no harm and her throat would be pierced by sharp white fangs before she could even yell for help. There was a pretty big chance forcing White's hand had been a bad idea after all, that she should shout now if she was ever going to. But, there was also the issue that, well, she didn't want to cry out. Not if there was any other option. 

"Ah, but the question is, then: why haven't you cried out already?" White observed, more amused than concerned. "I see. You don't dare interrupt him, not while he is talking to her, not unless you absolutely must. So you are looking for an alternative, a way to beat me that does not involve them, or a way to bluff me into withdrawing. Am I right?"

Janna tried to keep her face straight. To not betray even a hint of how much White's cold read had shaken her. But the dark princess was right. Janna definitely didn't want to yell for Tom when he was with Star. Partly because she cared about her friend, and they had agreed, earlier, that it was better if Tom went to her to talk some sense into her without bringing up the fact that Janna had spent a weekend in hell. There would always be time to tell her that after she had calmed down. But there were other reasons, darker reasons.

First, Janna didn't want to seem needy, or like she cared if Tom was talking to Star. Second, she thought of the possibility of Tom coming to help her, and, in her grief and confusion, Star fleeing away. It had taken them long enough to find her as it was. Not only would that be bad for Star, it would also make Tom angry at her. The worst part was, Janna knew those weren't good enough reasons to risk her life over them, but still, she found that she could not just yell for help, not unless Snow White moved to attack. She didn't. Not with fangs, at least.

"Pfft, I just don't want you to go running away like a coward when they come here!" pointed out Janna. It was no longer really true. In any case, it was not wise to say it, it put White on guard about Janna's intentions at best, and might make her angry at worst. There was something making it hard for Janna to think, to strategize; the strain of maintaining her spell, perhaps? or something else?. No matter, keep talking, keep her distracted, that was the only thing that mattered now. "How come you are a vampire? Do you automatically turn evil when you become a vampire? Why is that not part of the legend? What the hell is the deal with your green eyed freak of a friend?"

Instead of seeming mad, the dark princess shrugged and grinned back at Janna. She seemed to regard her very intently. Undead eyes gazing deeply into human ones as she sized her up. The troublemaker girl felt her body shiver with the effort of keeping the purple flames alive. White moved neither closer nor further away from her, seemingly unconcerned by the magical fireballs.

"I was born dark, a myth among the myths, but most of my kind are turned. Those who are turned are still themselves, until hunger and age strip them of their delusions of morality," she had counted to two with her fingers, as she answered the first two questions. "And there are many tales told of me, all true in part and false in part."

Three fingers up. A mocking smile.

"What about your friend?!"

"What about her?"

"Her riddles, how do you know what they mean?" risked Janna. It was too important to be left unasked.

"No one does. She has the gift of prophecy. What she says will come to pass, one way or another, and you can spend years pouring over every word for a way to avoid it and still be caught in the net in the end." The vampire's smirk told the human girl that White had spotted her own shock. The vampire was smart, smart enough to know that Janna wouldn't have asked if there hadn't been a prophecy and that she would not have reacted this way unless the prophecy was bad. A pale hand raised a fourth and final finger. "So, I have answered four of your questions, and I shall ask four of mine: this prophecy, the one that made you ask, does it involve your demon master? Does it involve you? How about the Mewman princess?"

"Yes, yes, and no" Janna lied. She had never been one for playing fair. She estimated a higher than even chance that her counterpart had been honest in all her answers, but that did not mean she had to be. White seemed to buy her answer. But then again, she was known to be a good actress.

"You care for him, don't you?" the princess smiled and glanced at a place behind Janna's back. Not being an utter fool, the troublemaker girl did not turn around to follow that gaze. "The demon. Alright, my fourth question: Do you love him?"

"That, would be saying too much," Janna attempted to brush off the question.

"No," White's face was clearly mocking her now. "I think that would be saying just enough. Also, I believe you lied about at least one other answer. You love him. He loves her. It is a story as old as tale, and it has quite a sad ending, am I right?"

Well, Janna thought, at least she had managed to fool the monster, throw her off the scent. Cass prophecy had nothing to do with any of that. And yet, a voice in her head whispered that it was indeed probable that White's own words would also turn prophetic nonetheless. It was certainly not a new fear for the troublemaker girl.

"She doesn't love him, though," the human girl replied, unsure of what compelled her to argue against the vampire, specially about something like this. She should be throwing her fireballs at her, or crying for help, now that she had gotten her answers. But she felt like she could not move a muscle. Her mind was racing with thoughts of Tom, and what he felt for Star, and not for her, never for her.

"Ah," White spoke, "but she is pretty, and you are not. She is royalty and you are not. She is powerful and you are not. And so, even if he stays with you, his heart will always be hers, whether she ever choses to claim it or not. The instant she wishes, what you imagine to be yours, she can take to be hers..."

"I can take something of hers too!" shouted Janna back, feeling suddenly irritated. Angry at White, angry at Star, angry at reality. She wasn't sure why she had even said that, but she could... she could... well, pickpocket Star's magic, if you could call it that. And Star would never know! Maybe that made up for the fact that Tom was still obsessed with Star. Maybe that made them even.

"No, foolish child," White shook her head sadly. "You can't. At best..."

In an instant she was in front of her, having moved too fast to be seen. Her hand choked Janna's windpipe, making it impossible for her to cry out. White lowered her own face, her blood red lips, towards Janna's outreached hands, and blew out her magic flames like birthday candles.

"... at best you can beg for crumbs," the vampire lifted her face and grinned victoriously. Then, she drew a finger to her face. "Now, shush, you wouldn't want to distract your love when he is with someone he cares about. Not over something as unimportant as your life. Would you?"

Fangs sprouted out from inside Snow White's pretty lips, her eyes turning bloodshot as well. She leaned downwards again, towards her neck. Janna tried to cry out, to yell, but she couldn't even breathe. She felt the vampire's lips against her flesh, and then... 

White licked her neck and drew away again, chuckling softly. The creature of the night shrugged, as if implying she wasn't worth drinking her blood, only barely worth toying with. Well, Janna thought, that's something White and Tom had in common.

Faster than shadow, and faster than wind, White let go of her neck and jumped up, disappearing almost into thin air. Janna did not see where she went, and she did not cry out either. She just collapsed against the tree, pale with fright and feeling terrible about her lot in the world, for quite unrelated reasons. In her heart of hearts, something dark began to fester.

\----

It was only a few minutes later when the other two teens finally left the clearing. Star looked slightly less disconsolate than before, Tom walked besides her, looking around nervously for, for...

"Hey, Star," spoke a seemingly bored girl, leaning against a tree.

"Whoa, Janna Banana," spoke Star, clearing her face once more with the back of her own dirty right arm. "What are you doing here?"

"I wonder that myself," Janna scoffed.

"Eh, sorry Star," Tom scratched the back of his head. "She was, ahem, at my place, you know, when Marco called."

"Oh," mouthed Star. "Sorry about what? Anyways, cool to see you. I am sorry I am such a mess right now, I... lets go find Marco, and... and Ponyhead, and Jackie."

Janna seemed about to say something, but held back in the last minute. The other children didn't notice.

From her hiding spot, already inside the demon prince's hearse-like coach, White felt her unbeating heart sing a song of joyous malice. All was going according to plan. The longer she waited, the less the human would be able to say anything about her encounter with her. It was all part of the suggestion, and it would take hold slowly but surely in her mind. Snow White had always had a way with words, and the mesmerizing gaze of a strong vampire, and those were often more wicked weapons than blades or fangs. The seeds of her revenge were already planted, and now all she had to do was wait. As a bonus, she could now hitch a ride, making her own escape by secretly following her enemies. A shadow of victory, within the mid-day of her temporary defeat.

\----

"Star!" Marco cried out as soon as he saw her emerge from the blood red doors of the hearse. He ran to hug her, but someone cut in before him, tackling him out of the way.

"B-fly!" shouted Ponyhead. "Sooo good to see you are alright! Don't ever ever scare me like that again, gurrl!"

"Awwww, Ponyhead! Nothing to worry about," Star said hugging her older bestie, then made a gesture to punch the air. "I can handle myself, remember?"

"Right," scoffed Tom, emerging right behind her. Star stuck her tongue at him.

"Hey, glad you found her, man," Marco nodded towards Tom. Then, turning towards Star, "He didn't do anything stupid, right? We couldn't think of anyone else to call, so..."

"Yeah, no, Marco, it was alright," Star replied. It still felt a bit awkward, she had to admit. There was so much to say, so much to apologize for. But for now she was just happy the boy was looking at her and talking to her. "Tom and I, well, were are cool now. We are friends. I mean, we fisted each other and all!"

Everyone's eyes went huge at that. Tom gulped. Ponyhead's mouth went slack. Jackie, who had not yet said anything and stood a few steps back from the group, with her hands behind her back, suddenly seemed to cough in surprise.

"Wait, I think she means they fist-bumped," Marco reasoned, "please tell me you mean you two fist-bumped, Star!"

"Yeah, yeah, that..." Star shrugged.

It begun with Marco, nervously. Then Tom, who rolled his eyes. Then Ponyhead, raucously. Then Jackie, who tried to conceal it, and Janna, bitterly. They all, one by one began to chuckle. Star didn't yet get the joke, and she intuited it was at her expense, but she felt relieved as everyone seemed to relax, even just a little bit. Soon she had joined them in laughing too, even if she didn't know why.

"I... Star, I am sorry, I shouldn't have said what I did..." Marco begun. Star cut him off.

"Not now, Marco. You were right, we need to get home first, then we can talk this all calmly," the mewman said, holding her hand up. "But, for the record, I know I fucked up, and I know what I did was terrible and keeping it a secret was also terrible. I know it will take more than one apology, but for what is worth, I am sorry... I... you don't think I am evil because of it, right?"

"Of course not, Star!" Marco shook his head in disbelief, and Star smiled in return.

It was then that Jackie walked up to her, and extended both arms towards the princess. In her palms laid the Kingdom of Mewni's most sacred heirloom: Star's royal magic wand. The human girl offered it to her without hesitation. Not exactly the wise thing to do when you heard someone was well in her path to become a dark queen, not unless you believed that was absolute hogwash. "Star, what you did wasn't cool. But you are still cool, alright?"

Star took back the wand from the other girl, carefully. Then, trying to remember the right Earth custom, or at least the right Jackie custom, she asked, "So, are we cool?"

Jackie seemed to hesitate for a bit. "... I think we are going to be, Star. Just, maybe give me more than a day to process all of this? I mean, this weekend was pretty crazy, you know? But, well, most of it wasn't bad at all... so thanks for that?"

Star smiled and Jackie smiled back.

"Ok, what are we waiting for?!" Star shouted. "Tom, if you'd be so kind, could we go to Mewni first? If the scissors are not working there either, then we might also need you to take some of us to Earth..."

"Sure, Star," Tom shrugged. "Will wait for you all there for a bit. No biggie."

\----

Tom's hearse was surprisingly spacious on the inside; quite able to accommodate the five teens for the brief inter-dimensional road trip. It wasn't nearly as instantaneous a method of travel as dimensional scissors were, but it was still impressively fast given the vast gulf between worlds. It was barely a half-hour trip between St O's and Mewni, it would perhaps be twice as long to Earth.

Strangely enough, Marco and Tom passed the time together, playing video games. Meanwhile, Janna, who had remained inside before, was keeping Jackie busy by asking her, in through detail, about her fight with princess White, seemingly both curious and impressed. Since Ponyhead had once again stayed behind in St. O's, this left out Star once more. She could not join either group right now, not without feeling at least a bit awkward.

That said, it wasn't so bad this time, not like in the forest. Sure, she was left alone to think, but this time her thoughts were calmer. She thought back to Cass and her prophecy: "Only surrender may undo the shadow, but the price shall be too high to pay". That meant there was a price, though, right? Something she could do or sacrifice to avoid the fate that the brunette girl had predicted for her. To avoid going dark.

It was not something Star wanted to think about. Normally, the mewman avoided thinking about all the things she didn't want to think about. Hell, right now she was avoiding thinking about the conversation she still had to have, with Jackie and Marco, when they got back to Earth. But, even then, it didn't feel right to ignore Cass' words in that same way, no matter what Tom had said. If her fate was to become evil, and there was a price, any price, that she could pay to avoid it, then she needed to be ready to pay that price. Right? Whatever it was, it couldn't be worth it, not if the alternative was Star becoming... what? Eclipsa? Princess White? Someone Marco and Jackie could truly hate rather than just excuse as a mess up of a princess? Star didn't know.

"Hey, Star," Marco's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Are you ok?"

Star saw then, that Tom and the human boy had finished her game. 'Tom: 58, Marco: 0' read the screen. The demon prince had then made his way to where Janna and Jackie were talking, and was now laughing with them, with an arm draped around the troublemaker's shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, Marco," Star forced a smile. "I am fine, go have fun."

"Fun? Playing any game with Tom is only fun for one of us, Star," Marco shrugged. "But, seriously, are you sure you are fine? If this is about the spell backfiring, I... Star, it doesn't matter to me, not as much as seeing you hurt over it. Just, maybe, can you not do that again, Star, please?"

"It is not just about that, Marco. It is about, you know, the 'evil incarnate' bit," Star admitted. "And, well, I am not sure I can avoid doing it again, either. I get the visions now, whether I want them or not... I'll try, you know? Make an effort not to watch, but..."

"An effort is enough for me, Star. Although not so sure about Jackie," Marco hesitated. "But Star, no matter what it is: Ludo, Toffee, gift card monsters, vampire princesses, weird sex telepathy, or even destiny itself! I'll be there, alright? We will face it together, whatever it is. Because I love you. Because you are my best friend. But most of all, because I know you Star, and I know no matter what it is, you can do it. Screw prophecy. Prophecy never has had to contend with Star Butterfly and Marco Diaz!"

"Awwwwww, Marco!" Star smiled, and cried. They were tears of joy. She turned back to hug the best bestie a bestie could have, and the best boyfriend a girl could wish for. They stayed like that, hugging in silence, for what felt like an eternity. Only stopping when Tom announced they had reached the Mewni royal castle.

\----

The demonic carriage appeared right in front of the castle bridge. A few townsfolk ran away in fright, spooked by the sudden burst of flames and the skeletal horse. The royal guards remained at their posts, however. They were all disciplined enough, or accustomed enough to the weirdness of Mewni nobility and their allies, not to be surprised when the demon prince carriage emerged from the flames. Nor did they seem particularly confused when their princess, Star Butterfly, emerged from the hearse herself, her friends following behind her.

The first thing Star noticed, was the somber expression in those same guards' faces. They nodded gravely at her as she emerged from the carriage. They clicked their heels a bit more stiffly, a bit more formally, than they would usually do in the presence of the princess. Then she saw the banners; all black. Then she spotted the flag of House Butterfly, flying at half-mast over the castle towers. Finally, she saw her father.

King River Butterfly of Mewni, born River Johansen, seemed to have aged ten years in the two days his daughter had been gone. Some measure of happiness and a huge wave of relief washed over his face the moment he laid eyes on Star. Even then, that did not hide the immense sorrow underneath. He came running through the bridge as fast as she had ever seen him run, even when he was much younger. His eyes were still bloodshot red, worse than her own had been earlier that night. He looked pale, sick.

He hugged his daughter tightly, and Star let herself be hugged, limply. Normally, she would have been so happy to see her dad, and so eager to hug him in return. But her mind had taken in all the signs, even as she refused to process them. She had read it all in his expression, even as she wished she was wrong, as she told herself she had to be wrong. That there was no way, no way at all.

It occurred then to Star that there was indeed a price that would have been too high to pay for the goodness of her heart, or for her own life. It occurred to her that such price might have already been paid, and that nothing that had been gained, nothing that could be gained, in exchange, would ever come close to being worth such a price.

River Butterfly let go of her daughter, and looked her in the eyes, as the horror Star felt seemed to reflect into the usually carefree blue orbs of her father.

"Dad, where is mommy?"

\----

#### END of Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ###### Coming up next:
> 
> **Part III: Going Through Hell**   
>  _Chapter 19: Long Live the Queen._


	19. [P3] Long Live the Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a wake is held, Marco casts a spell, Star delivers a truly heartfelt speech, and our heroes get not one but two messages from those thought forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters from 19 onwards can contain indirect post-Battle For Mewni Season 3 spoilers. This one was actually fully written before watching Nightlife, Deep Dive or Monster Bash (all of which came out today as of this writing).
> 
>  

# Part III: Going Through Hell

## Chapter 19: Long Live the Queen

Jackie traced her fingers softly along the contours of the boy's chest. It had been over a week now since they last had been alone like this. Her heart thumped with excitement, as much the fiftieth time as it had the first. For someone who could pull a pink dress better than her, Marco was downright manly. Lean, sure, but also well toned, muscles trained over years of karate practice and months of monster fighting. She whistled appreciatively and leaned in to kiss the boy's soft lips.

Their tongues sought each other hungrily, as Jackie felt herself melt out of reality for a second. She could feel his hands reaching behind and down to cup her ass. The room around them, Marco's room, seemed to vanish, and soon it was only the two of them, floating in empty space. It was not unlike that one time in between the aerial silk ribbons.

She broke the kiss, then began tracing a trail of smaller kisses, tiny pecks on the skin as she moved down his neck, his chest, his abs. When she got down to the waist she looked up towards him, and gave Marco her most mischievous smile, as her hands began to undo the buttons of his jeans.

"Wait, Jackie, I can't do this," Marco stopped her. His tone was regretful, but his gaze firm. "Not today."

"Awww, Marco, having performance anxiety?" she joked. Jackie knew full well that wasn't the issue, and Marco knew she knew. Still it didn't prevent her from turning her frustration into a friendly jib at her boyfriend. "It happens to a lot of guys, you know? Maybe you should just relax and wait a little bit?"

Marco groaned, "It is not that, Jackie, it's..."

"... Star," Jackie finished the sentence before he could. "Yeah, dude, I know."

It wasn't only that Star could be, would be, seeing them if they went any further than that. Hell, for all they knew of that stupid spell, she had seen what they had done just now too. Jackie herself had been hesitant to be alone with her boyfriend for the last few days, precisely because she didn't know how she felt about the fact that, well, that any time they got busy, Star would be there, watching, whether she did that on purpose or not. But she knew that wasn't what Marco meant. It was not that it didn't bother him too, but he was even more worried about how the princess herself would feel.

"Tomorrow is the wake, Jackie," Marco reminded her, as if she needed to be reminded. "It just doesn't seem right, for Star to see us, you know... not when she is grieving."

"I don't see how that one is our fault, though, Marco," she scoffed bitterly. It was petty of her to say it, but damn if it wasn't true.

"No, it isn't," agreed the boy. "But it is not about who is at fault. She told me she literally can't prevent herself from watching at this point. I don't want to put any more on her plate, not now."

Jackie nodded. Marco was a sweetheart, and he was right. The skateboarder girl was still angry at Star, angry that she had been spying on them, angry that she hadn't told them, angry that she had made things between her and Marco so incredibly awkward. But in the end, that didn't matter compared to what their mewman friend was going through right now.

"Right," Jackie mussed, as she began rearranging her hair. She really should have thought about Star, should have stopped being angry at her. Her mom had died, and instead of having the time to grieve and shout and be angry like a normal teenager under those circumstances, Star Butterfly had to stay on Mewni and organize her own mother's funeral. Not to mention, after that came the coronation. The human girl remembered the Song Day celebration, what it meant for Star to become queen. How much the other girl had wished that day never came, and now that day was right around the corner, whether she wanted or not. "Guess I am just awful."

"Oh, come on," lamented Marco. "Not you too. We are all under a lot of stress, alright? It is messing all of us up."

"All of us?" quipped Jackie. "You seem to be dealing with it pretty well, dude."

"I am not, Jackie," he replied. "I am finding it harder and harder to talk to Star these days, even on the mirror. I miss having my best friend around and it has only been a week. I feel guilty I didn't stay in Mewni with her, no matter what she says. And, oh, yeah, I can't help but feel it is my fault that Queen Moon died..."

"What?! Whoa, Diaz, how on Earth or Mewni is that last one your fault?" Jackie stopped him and put a hand on his shoulder.

He paused for a moment before answering, "Well, if not for Princess Marco, there wouldn't have been a princess revolution. Without that, no Princess White. Without that, no Ponyhead dragging us to St. O's that night. Which means we would have been in Mewni at the time, and Star would have been there when her mom was attacked and she would have the wand and..."

"Dude," Jackie interrupted him again. "First of all, that is a remarkably long chain of events in which many more people than you had a hand in. Second, if we had been there, maybe Star herself would have been... for all you know, not being there saved us, saved Star. Third, there is absolutely no chance you could have predicted all that in advance! You can't blame yourself for not anticipating something no one ever could."

"Yeah, Jackie, I know but, like I said, it is messing all of us up. Still, thanks for saying it aloud, it helps to hear it from someone else," Marco smiled. It soon turned into a frown. "But it is messing Star up the most, though. I just wish I knew she was alright."

"Yeah, dude, me too."

\----

"Moon Butterfly, Queen of Mewni, Honoris High-commissioner of Magic, Protector of the Lands, Preserver of the Peace, Wielder of the Royal Magic Wand, Moon the Undaunted, The Lizard Vanquisher, my mother. A week ago she left us, and in her place there is a hole in the firmament, and in the heart of every citizen of Mewni, including my own. She was just, and wise, and kind, and fierce. She put the kingdom's needs before her own, in times of plenty and in times of need. She was our light in every cloudy day, and she would not sleep until the least of her subjects was safe from harm," Star read to the empty cemetery, at night. The statues of former queens of Mewni, as well as their kings and consorts, were her only audience for this final rehearsal. 

She paused to take a breath, and then continued, "She has left us, and none of us can ever hope to fill her shoes. Least of all me. Nonetheless, I shall try to be the best queen I can be in my mother stead. I am Star Butterfly, Princess of Mewni, Wielder of the Royal Magic Wand. I have spent the last year on Earth, and many of you don't know me, and those who do might not have good reason to trust my words. But I promise, with Solena, and Skywynne, and Celena, and Solaria, and all former Queens of Mewni as my witnesses, that I will try to be just and kind and wise as a ruler, and to... sniff... be half the queen my... sniff... mother was."

She had written the words over days, and practiced them until she knew them by heart, and yet every time she read them, she broke down crying. It was not her usual infantile bawling, but a slow trickling of tears, accompanied by a sharp pain in her heart like she had never experienced before; not when she lost her wand, or when she lost Glossaryck, or when she lost her book of spells, not even close.

Star was about to collapse on the ground to cry, amidst the marble tombs and sculptures, atop the soft graveyard grass, when she heard a soft slow clapping to her right. She turned around, to see Tom, in a somber black suit, walking towards her.

"For what's it worth, Star, I think you'll do a much better job as queen than I'll ever do as king," he remarked.

"Tom? What are you doing here?" the princess answered, surprised.

"Creeping, I guess, old habits..." he joked apologetically, and Star chuckled despite herself. "But really, Star, I wanted to talk to you, to see how you were doing and to, well, to offer my condolences. I don't think I can, or should, be at the wake tomorrow, but I felt I had to say something. Only now, I have no idea what to say."

"Tell me about it," replied Star.

She honestly wouldn't have minded Tom and his family attending her mom's funeral tomorrow. They were, after all, friends of the family. But royal wakes were open events in Mewni, which meant a large portion of the kingdom's subjects would be in attendance. The fact that some monsters would be welcomed, by special permission of Star, was already somewhat controversial. Inviting the Lucitors too would be, how did her mom put it: bad optics. Star grimaced, not even a queen yet and she had already had to start thinking like one, speaking like one. It was suffocating.

"Tom," she spoke quietly, barely a whisper. "I have to ask: do you think you could help me see my mom again, even for a moment? Is there any way? I already tried on my own, everything but the Seeing Eye spell... I don't trust that one now. Nothing I can do seems to work... I know you can bring the dead back, at least partially, could you...?"

"Star..." Tom sounded uncomfortable, and sad beyond measure. He walked towards her and shook his head, not quite regretfully. "Your mom is never going to be down there, and I can't take you to the other place. For what is worth, I am sure you'll see her again, though, when it is time."

"Unless I do end down there," Star mussed. She began walking towards the altar. In a table, in front of the sacred symbols, was a crystal casket, built by Rhombulus himself. Inside the casket was Moon, immobile, peaceful, as if sleeping. Not for the first time, Star wished she had at least had the chance to say sorry. For everything.

"You won't," Tom assured her.

"How can you be sure?" the mewman countered. "I have done some pretty bad things already, to my friends. I was never a very good daughter, either. And well, I have cast dark magic..."

"Star, your mom casted dark magic too, once," the demon prince reasoned. "That doesn't make her a bad person. It is about intent, and the lines you intentionally do or do not cross."

But Star was no longer listening, she had stopped listening the moment Tom spoke about her mom, as if he knew her better than Star herself did. "My mom casted dark magic?"

"Ah, well, I only heard about it back then from rumors, you know? I wasn't in Mewni at the time or anything," he clarified. "But, well, how much do you know about how your mom got that Lizard Vanquisher title?"

Right, Tom had been around back then. It was hard to imagine. The boy looked her age, acted her age, and for all she knew might be the equivalent to her age in demon years. But demons lived far longer than Mewmans, millennia instead of decades. She wondered if that made her former relationship with the fiend like, super icky. But, right now, she couldn't summon enough energy to care about something like that.

"Not much," Star admitted. "I know she fought Toffee when she was young, and maybe a whole monster army, but not much more than that."

Why had she never asked her mom about that? Why had Moon never told her? It was silly to ask. Moon never talked about the days when she first became queen, and Star never asked, because the topic was painful for both of them. It was then that Star realized that her mom had lost grandma when she was not much older than herself. She alone would have understood what Star was going through now, and now Star would never be able to ask her, because she was gone.

"She defeated Toffee with a dark spell," Tom spoke.

"Yes, I guess I knew that: 'The immortal monster will long be haunted by the darkest spell of Moon the Undaunted'," she quoted the tapestry's words.

"Except it was also a dark spell of Eclipsa, Queen of Darkness," Tom corrected her. Then, he added with a shrug, "Not really sure if it was her darkest spell too or not."

Star's mouth fell open with shock, and she couldn't think of anything to say. Eclipsa's spell? From the book? She had read Eclipsa's chapter, and there wasn't anything in there like that. But Tom proceeded to tell her the story, the best he knew. And what a story it was!

Eclipsa was alive! And Star's mom had made a deal with her, a deal for a spell that could kill Toffee in exchange for the dark queen's freedom. But the spell had misfired, or maybe Moon had realized her potential mistake and purposefully stayed her hand in the last moment. Either way, it had been sufficient to disperse Toffee's army. And, not having killed him, the magical contract remained unfulfilled. Eclipsa remained crystallized.

"Wow, Tom, I never knew..." Star grasped for something to say. Then, with a smile, she settled on "...Thank you."

"No problem. I can see why your mom never told you, but you would have learned this sooner or later, now that you are going to be... I mean, never mind, you would have known soon," Tom corrected himself. "But my point is, using a dark spell didn't make your mother dark, not when used for a good purpose."

"I don't think that's exactly what I did, though," reasoned Star, thinking back to the night she casted the All-Seeing Eye. It had definitely not been for a good purpose. Wasn't lust a cardinal sin, both on Earth and on Mewni?

"Right, Star. Let's just say that eternal damnation takes more than a prank that accidentally went over the line," Tom shrugged. "Cold-blooded murder, hurting the innocent in an obsessive quest for revenge, wanton acts of tyranny, those are the kinds of things I see queens and kings go down there for. The last Butterfly queen we got was Eris the Silent, who covered and approved of the abuses of Mewni's cruelest guild for decades, and presided unmoved over the most decadent and corrupt court your kingdom has ever seen. Even someone like that is a borderline case."

"What about Eclipsa?" the princess asked.

"Star... Eclipsa is alive."

"Oh, Right."

\----

Marco glided through the darkness, flying above the ocean of emerald flames. Below him, the smoke rose from the ashes of the Afflicted Forest. Nachos, his trusted dragon-cycle companion, was the only thing between him and a deadly fall into the green inferno below. The last time he had been here, the air itself had been infused with the deadliest of poisons. But the dark clouds around him were completely inert, as if the fire had sterilized even the arcane toxins of the place. The earth itself burned, as if made not of rock but dry grass, down to the very foundations of the world.

"Hekapoo!" he cried, desperately. The squawking cries of a murder of five-eyed crows was his only answer. The last time he had come here, it had been in victory, his quest completed, his prize ready at hand. Now he felt just like the crows, struggling just to keep afloat over the hell which welcomed him.

Marco lifted his right hand, keeping the left one on Nachos' horns, his powerful muscular legs pressing against the equally strong dragon body. Sixteen years older than even an hour ago, he was in the best shape of his entire life. Neither as guild-master, nor as warrior, had he been so powerful. And yet, compared to the devastation that surrounded him, he felt so very powerless. Still, he carefully intoned twelve words of power, brought his knuckles to his mouth, drew breath, and calmly exhaled into his clenched fist. It lit up with golden light. He extended up a single finger, and all the power of the ritual began flowing slowly towards its tip.

Magic always came from somewhere. It was a lesson that Marco had learned in those long sixteen years away from home, a fact he would never have realized while he only hung around Star, back on Earth or Mewni. People like Star, like Hekapoo, like Tom, had vast pools of magic to draw from, wherever they went. Most others drew power from those around them, or from the land itself.

There was a third source of magic, however, one favored by sages and by madmen, and by the gods, when even they required help. It was the magic of barter, of treaty, of compact. It was a bargain with just but uncompromising masters. The ritual magics which Marco summoned now were one such trade: a spell to find that which was missing. The cost was to lose what had been found, to forget something one already knew, of equal value to that gained. The ancient powers only rule was fairness, and their taste was one for irony.

Without knowing, or caring, which memory he might have given up in exchange, he began tracing the word in the air with his finger. He began with the glyph for 'fire', one of the simplest and oldest in the ancient tongue of Riradesh. To the left, he continued the line to draw the blade, another simple stroke, continued into the slightly more involved glyph for 'construction'. Around the two he traced a much more complicated pattern. It wasn't exactly void, or universe; the literal translation would have perhaps been 'the empty place between the many places'. The final component meant something akin to mastery, and something akin to ownership, and it implied the feminine: 'she who knows this thing so completely as to command it as its rightful mistress'.

Hekapoo's name, in her own script, shone bright and clear in white light, even amidst the ebony smoke and the viridescent light from the burning land. It flared for a second, and then it rolled onto itself, becoming a hollow ball of brightness, flying through the darkened sky like a comet. Nachos flew behind, in vertiginous pursuit.

The spell dragged Marco into the blackness that rose from below, to a world in which he could see nothing but himself, and Nachos, and the magic shooting star that would show the way. Eventually, the meteor crossed a wall of fire, not green but bright red and golden. Marco, without hesitation, followed behind. The flames did not burn him as he passed through.

He found himself in front of a tall dead spiked tree, the same he had visited last time he had been here, now the last one standing in the entire Afflicted Forest. Around the place was a bubble of red and gold fire, Hekapoo's fire. It shrunk slowly, inch by inch. Calmly, as if in a trance, Marco dismounted and walked into the sorceresses home.

"Was beginning to think you would not come in time," Hekapoo greeted him. She sat calmly, on her knees, on the floor. The furniture inside the forge-home was gone, in its place only a simple red carpet between round stone walls. Her flame was not but a fading candle.

"You know I will always find you, H-poo," Marco spoke. He felt as if he were reading lines from a script. Inside his mind another voice yelled at him that none of this made sense, that it wasn't real. "Two hundred of you, across as many dimensions. I always did find you. I always will."

"Aw, kid, you make me blush," she joked. Then she frowned, as if suddenly reminded of something awful. "This one is going to be a little harder than last time, I am afraid."

"I take it I haven't found you yet, then," Marco continued. "This is a dream. It isn't real."

"It is a dream," Hekapoo agreed. "I wouldn't go as far as saying it is not real. Maybe it looks like this, maybe it doesn't. But I am dying, most of me, and with that, so does my world."

"How long?" asked the hero of a dozen different epics, Marco of Averx, and of K'Ahleh, and of Zonst. Marco, of Earth, the real Marco, would have been sad, and scared. In time, so would be the proud warrior as well. But now it was not the time for grief, it was the time to act, to ask any question that could help save the Forger of Scissors.

"This aspect of me will be dead by the time you wake up, perhaps for good," the sorceress admitted. "Apparently, I entered into a bargain without intending to. A ritual of sealing, you know? For a force greater than myself. The price is that I must also be sealed. Because how the hell could it be anything else, right?"

The ancient powers had a taste for irony. They could be called by men and by gods, when either required help.

"Every echo I send out, allows it one of its own of... proportional magnitude. I could risk only two aspects, neither complete." continued Hekapoo. "I would have not done even that much, if I knew I could keep this evil contained. But there are forces on top of forces here, pacts that must supersede other pacts, and a dark destiny written in the heavens that I cannot fully avert. Wow, that got a bit dramatic there, didn't it?" she smiled, bitterly.

"The prophecy, right?" Marco asked. Hekapoo only shrugged.

"If there is one, I did not hear it this time," she replied. "And don't bother telling me. I'll be erased soon enough, already said most of what I had to say. Honestly, we are wasting time now. I guess, mostly, I am trying to stall. Lame, isn't it? After living this long, still afraid to die..."

"I'd trade mine for yours, Hekapoo, if the ancient powers didn't know that for a poor exchange," older Marco spoke, truthfully. The sorceress laughed in return.

"If that could be done, I would have already traded my life for someone else, kid," she confessed. "But I wouldn't do it for you, and you shouldn't do it for me. There is one you might one day soon have to die for, you know? Save your bargain for her."

Marco raised an eyebrow. "You said you sent out two aspects of yourself?"

"Yes, one to find you, and one to be found," Hekapoo intoned. "One to explain, the other to reveal a worthy ally. Look for me to find yourself, and when we next shall meet, our roles shall have reversed."

"Is the riddle necessary, H-poo?" Marco asked.

"Believe it or not, Marco, it sort of is," she replied. Right, that was ritual magic for you after all, rules over rules over more rules. "I know, right? Lame times dek!"

They both smiled at that.

The bubble of flames crossed the walls of the place then, and all around them the stone walls became occluded by a bright conflagration, in which red and green fire danced together. Under different circumstances, it would have been almost pretty.

"Why me? Why not Star?" Marco asked, and he knew it would be his last question for her.

"Because what I have shown you is most useful to you. Because I wanted to see you," Hekapoo smiled. "And because I could not have faced Star. Not after Moon... You know Marco? Star's mom and I? We were close. You have no idea how much. No one was to know. But I don't suppose that even matters now. I lo..."

Marco woke up in Jackie's arms, crying.

\----

It was the hour before sunset and, unlike the night before, the Mewni royal cemetery was packed with people. It was a beautiful place, despite its grim significance: gardens of many-colored flowers and the most vibrant greens, sprinkled with the busts of nobles and the full body statues of former queens atop their lavish crypts. Each sculpture a work of art, and each reflecting the personality of their represented monarch and the artistic style of her times. From the angular fierceness of Solaria's warring form, to the delicate dancing effigy of Solena, to the ominous empty black pedestal representing dark queen Eclipsa.

Today everyone was here early, the high and the low alike, all wishing to pay tribute and say their goodbyes to one of the most beloved monarchs this land had ever had. And to hear, with perhaps some measure of apprehension, the words of their next queen: Star Butterfly, the Yet-Untitled. A girl with tears made of honey and a heart full of bunnies, but also known for her tempestuousness and a penchant for wreaking havoc on par with a natural disaster. A wild card in terms of the future of Mewni, and one mired in rumors which cast shadows over the continuation of the royal line of succession.

Star herself hung back at first, inside the royal marquee, decorated in cerulean blue but flying the black banners of mourning. King River was with her. They waited for the crowds to finish arriving, before it was Star's turn to address her people. When it came to this sort of thing, Mewni tradition did not call for the king to speak. The king's power was at most symbolic, while the queen wielded the wand. They needed reassurance not from River, but from Star, their true future ruler. The only one who needed reassurance from King River, was the princess herself.

"It is time, Sweetheart. You can do this. Moon Pie would be so proud," he spoke, a tear in his eye.

"Thanks, daddy," she replied, hugging him lightly.

Star walked out of the royal tent, chin held high, face composed. It felt like she was barely even there, acting in automatic, a puppet mimicry of what her mother would have done, while the real Star curled in inside her head. Her black dress was the perfect balance of royal elegance and appropriate somberness, as the occasion demanded. Her nods and tone controlled and reassuring, while showing just enough of her sorrow to fit the occasion.

"I am sorry. I miss her too. Hekapoo as well! I should have been there, to fight! Who is going to be there now... to... to put me on timeout? To look over us?"

"Bhaaaaaaaaa!"

"Thanks, Rhombulus, Lekmet. We will make it through, don't worry. It is what my mother would have wanted us to do."

The words as empty as Star felt. Her eyes scanning the crowd, projecting self-confidence, seeing nothing.

"I know your mom didn't like us much, she had reasons. Yet she was never cruel. For what is worth, Star, am sorry. Is tragedy."

"Thank you, Yvgeny."

"Call Buff Frog."

She kept sleepwalking. A foot in front of the other. Knowing that if she stopped she would fall down and not be able to stand anymore.

"Princess Star, I have composed an aria of lamentation for the fate of Queen Moon. It would be an honor if you could deign to hear it."

"Perhaps later, Ruberiot. Thank you."

Not even anger. Beyond sadness. Just nothingness.

"Star, thanks for inviting us, I am so sorry. If there is anything we can do..."

"Thanks, Jackie."

"Star..."

He ran to hug her. The guards flinched, but let him through. Like her, he had no words.

"Thank you, Marco. I... I need to keep going."

"Yes, I know."

He let go.

\----

She stood in a wooden podium. Behind her was the altar, and her mother's casket. In front of her, forming an ocean of black and brown robes, crested by waves of sullen faces, was the entire kingdom of Mewni. Along with them were: the two remaining members of the high commission, Yvgeny Bulgolyubov and his family, the two humans from Earth, Kelly and Tad, and many more people Star recognized. Somewhere around, unseen, might have been Thomas Lucitor, prince of hell, perhaps Janna too. Janna could have come openly, but she had declined without explanation.

"Moon Butterfly, Queen of Mewni, Honoris High-commissioner of Magic, Protector of the Lands, Preserver of the Peace, Wielder of the Royal Magic Wand, Moon the Undaunted, The Lizard Vanquisher, my mother. A week ago she left us, and in her place there is a hole in the firmament, and in the heart of every citizen of Mewni, including my own. She was just, and wise, and kind, and fierce. She put the kingdom's needs before her own, in times of plenty and in times of need. She was our light in every cloudy day, and she would not sleep until the least of her subjects was safe from harm..." Hollow words. They meant nothing. They were all true, but they still meant nothing. "She has left us, and none of us can ever hope to fill her shoes. Least of all me."

It happened then, at that exact moment. Something inside the Star-marionette broke, and the real Star came out. She rose from the depths of her mind with fury and determination, breaking through the resignation and despair. Turning sadness into defiant anger. Crying her resistance to the heavens. Externally, Star did not move, but everyone still felt it when her look turned from one of glazed out emptiness, to a glare made of steel. Her voice boomed with power.

"So, I am not going to," she continued, going off script. "Not yet, anyways. Not while my mother remains to be avenged. While the creature that took her from us yet lives. I will seek that evil out, whatever and wherever it is, and I will end it!"

Star voice roared, her eyes flaming coals that would have frightened Tom himself. The crowds murmured, some in fervent approval, some in abject terror.

"I will not take the crown, not until I have found this abomination and repaid its cruelty a thousandfold! This I promise, with all former Queens of Mewni as my witnesses: with Solena, and Skywynne, and Celena, and Solaria... and Eclipsa as well!" she yelled, her hands grasping the podium so hard that it broke and splintered.

A quiet tremor moved along the assembled people at the mention of the Queen of Darkness' name.

"Until then," Star continued. "You shall have my father, River Johansen, River Butterfly, as your rightful king and regent. And you shall obey him like you would any Queen of Mewni. When I return, I will try my best to be a wise, and kind, and good queen. But not until I have fulfilled my promise.

I have mourned my mom, privately for days, and now here, among all of you." She let go of the wooden podium and searched inside her dark formal dress. She extended her right hand in front of herself, the royal magic wand, the symbol of her power, literal and figurative, glowing dark green, pointed at the sky in defiance. "But I am done mourning her, now I am going to avenge her!"

"Yes! That's my girl!" shouted Rhombulus, even as everyone else fell silent with shock and dread.

\----

"Star, wait..." Marco ran behind her, even as the crowds parted to let her pass, cowed by the princess' cold fury.

This wasn't right. Rhombulus was wrong, this wasn't Star. Not quite. Sure, she might be impulsive and fierce and often far too ready to fight. But she wasn't the kind to just pledge murder. He could see that she had terrified her subjects. Even King River seemed disturbed. And, well, Marco was shocked too. It wasn't that he didn't understand, it was that he understood only too well what Star was thinking.

The moment she had raised her wand, the moment she had sworn herself to vengeance, the boy couldn't help but hear the words of the girl named Cass. The fragment of a prophecy that ended in Star's own death: 'Behold the dark queen ascending...'.

"Marco, I'll speak to you before I leave, don't worry," she pointed out, calmly, as he finally reached her. "Take good care of Jackie, ok? Sorry for you-know-what."

Wait, before she left? Was Star planning to leave him and Jackie behind too? I mean, sure, things had been a little bit tense between them this past few days, but still, Marco had thought it was just a matter of some time, of letting Star grieve and Jackie process her feelings. Even if Star did become queen, he didn't even consider, didn't think that they would... well, not this soon.

For a second, he considered telling Star about his dream, about Hekapoo. If there was a place to start the princess quest for revenge it was there. But, well, Marco wasn't sure he should be helping Star, not with that. He made his way past the confused guards and grabbed her left arm.

"Star, the prophecy," he finally said, quietly, so others wouldn't hear. His eyes pleading for Star not to go down this path. She turned around, wand leveled at him.

"Marco, I don't care," she replied, also a whisper. "Nothing has felt right these days, nothing until now. I have to do this. If avenging my mom is wrong, if it is the evil thing to do... then, well, call me a villainess."

She gritted the last part through her teeth, mindful of the potential audience not too far from them. Marco sighed, and let her go. It is not as if he could blame her.

The wake went on, and the funeral as well. In the absence of the princess, it was an even gloomier affair than what it would have already been before. Marco spent the night wondering, whether maybe Star was right, and he was wrong. What would he do or not do, were something to happen to his own parents? Or to Jackie? Or to Star?

\----

"I summon the All-Seeing Eye," Star begun. As she said the words, she knew it was a terrible idea, perhaps one of the very worst she had ever had. To do this alone, in the middle of the Forest of Certain Death, after the ways in which the spell had backfired the last time she tried it... it was madness! But the spell was her only lead. It was the only way she could think of to find out anything more about the flaming monstrosity that her father had seen murder her mom.

She had seen Mewni, that last time she tried the spell. She had seen Omnitraxus die, and Toffee, and Glossaryck, even if she hadn't seen who killed them. What was the chance all those were not connected? How likely was it, really, that those three and Moon were unrelated? Star wasn't sure how the pieces fit together, she knew only that they did, somehow. Besides, even if the spell backfire wasn't linked to whatever had happened back on Mewni, the Seeing Eye itself was supposed to show her what she wished to see, if only she could get it to work properly.

"To tear a hole into the sky..." she continued, bracing herself for madness.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," spoke a soft female voice behind her. The tone was firm, yet casual. Not a threat. There was no surprise, nor fear, woven into the words. It was a statement of fact. A friendly warning. "That's not a spell you want to be casting in this state, believe me."

Star turned around to see a young girl, perhaps her own age. Her skin was very pale, almost gray. Her purple eyeshadow matched her dress. Her flowing hair was about as long as Star's own, but formed of green curls rather than straight blond locks.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, dark magic, yada yada," Star countered. She wasn't sure if she knew the stranger. She seemed, well, familiar somehow. She had met so many people that day at her mom's wake, so many strangers offering condolences, both heartfelt as well as insincere. "Look, it is just a scrying spell, and there is something I need to find..."

"A scrying spell? Oh, dear," the strange girl exclaimed, taking a hand to her mouth in surprise. Star had the weirdest feeling that she was missing something. "Is that what you think that is?"

"Well, yeah," Star spoke. She felt annoyed at the stranger. How dare she interrupt her now that she had decided to do everything in her power to find her mom's killer? How dare she presume to know what Star's spells did? No one ever knew how Star's magic worked! Even her mom would have known nothing about this one. "It is an old spell, and a bit spooky. But I have done this before, alright?"

"Yeah, so have I," the stranger mussed. Her tone slow, drifting in contemplation, or recollection. "But I also didn't know better back then. I wasn't really that much older than you, when I scribbled that one into the book..."

"When you what?!" Star shouted in shock. She turned back to the stranger, pointing her wand straight at her. The magical instrument glowed with deadly power. It was then that the mewman princess noticed the spade marks in the stranger's cheeks. "Wait a second! You are Eclipsa!"

"Well, yes," the girl shrugged. "I thought it was obvious, dear. By the way, thanks for including me in that little speech of yours. It was very moving. It is selfish of me, but it feels so nice after all the other things people are saying about me these days..."

Star didn't move her wand one millimeter. For an instant she wondered if perhaps she should be a tad bit more cautious about the names she swore stuff on. Eclipsa was evil, and like, super dangerous. Wasn't she?

"Wait, but aren't you supposed to be like, you know... crystallized?" Star whispered the last world, still struggling with the notion that she was talking to her ninth great-grandmother, who looked her age, and was also perhaps the greatest villain to ever have lived in Mewni.

"I was," her ancestor admitted, looking sad momentarily. "For a long while, apparently. I only really got out recently. You see, your mom and I made a deal..."

"... that you would be free as soon as Toffee died. And now Toffee is dead." finished Star. 

She noticed that this meant she had confirmation that the visions the All-Seeing Eye spell had shown her last time corresponded to reality. All the more reason she should cast it again, no matter the risk. Then, she thought of something, and the brightness within the wand increased, turning a sickly shade of green. 

"Wait! How do I know it wasn't you? You have been free for days! Did you..." she choked. "Did you kill my mother?!"

"Oh dear! Absolutely not!" Eclipsa exclaimed, looking genuinely shocked. "I liked Moon. She was such a sweet kid. I mean, I know she was not fond of me, but I would never hurt her..."

"How do I know you aren't lying?" pressed Star. Anger burned through her, ready to be unleashed at the slightest sign that the woman before her was the one responsible for her mom's death.

"Well, you don't," the Queen of Darkness reasoned, seemingly unconcerned about the most powerful weapon in Mewni being pointed directly at her chest. "I mean, if I had done it, I would certainly lie. Even if I were to tell you a spell to make me tell the truth, why would you believe that is true either? I can tell you I want the same thing you want, to see the creature that killed Moon gone. But I suppose only you can decide whether you believe that or not. Maybe, well, maybe I can show you. Perhaps I can be of assistance?"

"You mean helping me find the thing that killed my mom? To destroy it?" Star replied, doubtfully. But she lowered her aim an inch, and the wand's glow slowly faded away. This was bad, recruiting the evil queen as an ally. Then again, wasn't that the same her mom had done?

"I am afraid not," Eclipsa answered regretfully. "I mean, I am sorry, I just got out, you have no idea what that's like. I want a little while to just smell the roses, eat the candy I didn't have all those years. I know it sounds horrible. I am really sorry about Moon, really, I swear, by my own mother, and my daughter, and all the queens before me or since. But I just got my freedom, I don't want to dedicate it to vengeance..."

The princess' heart sank. Here she was, talking to the Queen of Darkness herself, and it was Star whose heart seemed to be filled with hate, the one who longed for revenge. She though for a second, about the scared faces of her subjects, about what Marco had said. But then, she thought about the body; the unmoving body in the glass casket, the cold flesh that had been her mom.

"What if I do want to do it? Vengance, I mean," she asked, her tone ice-cold. "Could you help me still somehow? What about the spell you gave my mom?"

"Are you certain that's what you want?" replied Eclipsa surprised. "I can do that. But that spell does require a magical contract. I am afraid that part is sort of fundamental to the way it works."

The green-haired royal seemed to ponder the issue for a moment.

"Perhaps, well, if you truly are sure..." she trailed off an instant before continuing, as if organizing her thoughts. "That speech you gave, what you said before, that would work. You can promise to me you will find Moon's killer and destroy it, before you become queen. That would be acceptable in exchange for the spell, and is what you plan to do anyways. Isn't it?"

Star hesitated for a second. It was one thing to make that promise to her subjects, in the heat of the moment. It was something that she could probably still take back at this point. Her mother would have known the political cost of doing that, she would have told her it was a bad image for the new queen to be seen as going back on a promise as her first royal act. But it was at least theoretically possible. This seemed a lot more permanent somehow.

"If you are not absolutely sure, though, you really shouldn't do it," Eclipsa offered helpfully. 

Star felt ashamed. She never even wanted to be queen! And, well, she had to stand by her words either way. She had to avenge her mom, and she couldn't do so if she had to assume all the responsibilities of Queen of Mewni at the same time.

"I swear I will not be queen, until my mother has been avenged." Star extended a hand. Then she smiled, "with Eclipsa as my witness."

The former queen chuckled in response. As she took Star's hand into her own, a ribbon of darkness coiled around their outstretched arms, and the princess felt a tingling sensation. Eclipsa leaned down and whispered the words of the spell into her ear.

"So, will that really kill anything?" Star asked.

"Any creature, and anything living or undead, and most denizens of hell or heaven," replied Eclipsa. "As long as you hit the heart. Or well, the closest equivalent."

"Wow, that sounds really... powerful. I am kinda sad I don't have the rest of your chapter," the princess admitted. "I lost the book, and I think, I am not sure but I think, it is gone now, for good."

"Well, I lost the book once too," Eclipsa replied pensively. "When I... went away, from Mewni. I sort of made one of my own after that: a few things I remembered, a few things I found out after. Unfortunately, I was never diligent enough at it to get even all of what was in my old chapter in there..."

"Yeah, tell me about it," echoed Star. Remembering her own experiences with trying to keep her own notebook of spells after losing the book to Ludo. Meanwhile, Eclipsa began rummaging through her dress.

"Here," she handed Star a small bundle of pages, sewed together with two black covers made of what seemed to be something like fossilized rose petals. The girl winked at Star. "I don't think I will need this anymore."

"Whoa, thanks!" Star replied, as she took the book carefully into her hands, almost reverentially. She looked at it, thoughtfully, then back at Eclipsa. She was definitely not what the princess had expected. "You know? You don't really seem evil..."

"Well, thank you. Neither do you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter of this fic which has elements from what I like to call the "Habit mythos". Meaning that some elements from the excellent fic: [A Habit Hard to Break](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9982967) are considered fanon in this fic as well. I call it a mythos and not a universe or a fic-of-fic, because I am not aiming at full consistency here (for one, Marco did not come back from Hekapoo's dimension with PTSD in this fic). There is also no need to read Habit to understand this fic, I will explain the things I use from there as it becomes important to know them. You should still read Habit, because it is amazing.
> 
> Special thanks to Grade_A_Sexual and Akeara4 (Habit's authors) for helping me understand the Habitverse and its rules, and thus break them in style.
> 
> Another thing I want to clarify, is that while I am obviously using her Season 3 appearances to inform the character, the plan was always to have Eclipsa appear here and do pretty much what she just did. Don't believe me? Go back to the first comment under Chapter 17. The secret is #1 and the password is ancientevilunawoken
> 
>  **Coming up next** : _Chapter 20: Paved with Good Intentions_


	20. Paved with Good Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we start getting a glimpse the road ahead, and many hard conversations take place.

## Chapter 20: Paved with Good Intentions

"You know, Marco, when you said you wanted to hang out today, this is not what I had in mind," Tom spoke, irritated, as he guided the other boy lower and lower through the deepest reaches of his corner of the underworld. He led through black decrepit stairwells, through stone bridges over burning lava pools, through pitch-black tunnels full of nameless horrors. By all rights he should hate the human, see him as a rival, and dispose of him at the earliest opportunity. That was his nature.

"What did you think I was going to ask you then, Tom?" Marco retorted, as he nervously scuttled through the narrow downwards ledge, a bottomless abyss extending ominously to his right. Well, not truly bottomless in the literal sense, Tom knew. But the thing at the bottom would devour you before you realized you had reached the ground, so it might as well be endless, really.

"Honestly, I thought you were here so I could destroy you at some other game. I am still trying to beat my record, you know? Pulverize you sixty to zero, or better, at something. Come on, I know we both can do it!" He laughed and gave Marco a playful pat on the shoulder. The human yelped in terror as he lost his balance, nearly falling to his demise. But Tom held him back with an outstretched arm. Nature be dammed, he had grown to like the whelp. Not enough to know what Star saw in him, but well, that was none of his business. "But seriously, Marco, why do you want to see it?"

"Well, Tom, I don't know what you have heard about Star's speech, yesterday, at her mom's wake..." Marco began. Tom smiled bitterly to himself.

"All of it, Marco," he replied with a shrug. "I was there too."

The look of confusion in the human boy's face was absolutely worth it. "Wait, you were there? I didn't see you there. Star didn't see you there either, I think."

"I know," Tom replied with a smug grin. 'Point, Tom', he thought to himself with some satisfaction. Then his expression went far more serious for a moment. "I didn't want to scare the locals too much. They know me, but that doesn't mean they aren't afraid of demons showing up, specially at funerals. Given the fright Star was putting them through, I didn't think it was a good idea for me to make an appearance. Thanks for trying to stop her, by the way, not that I expected it to work."

"Yeah, neither did I," Marco admitted.

"She just does whatever she wants," both of them intoned in unison and chuckled nervously.

They fell into a short but uncomfortable silence, as they made their way through a cave with teeth-like stalagmites, which might or might not have once been something's real teeth. Marco was the first to speak. "Do you think she is right? To seek vengeance for her mom, I mean."

Tom shrugged. He truly didn't know. His heart told him yes, while his mind, and Brian, would have said no. It was a treacherous road Star was taking, almost like the volcanic maw the two of them were now descending into. In the end, though, it was her road to take or not take. Tom harbored no illusions that he could influence Star's decision there. Maybe Marco could, but he doubted even that.

There was an island inside a hellish caldera, reachable by a lead boat rowed by faceless demons. On the island stood a tower, and there, down in its bottommost basement, the room Marco had asked about.

"You know Star has one of those too, right? In upper Mewni," Tom pointed up. In fact, Star's maps room was far easier to access than his. What was with demons and placing all their important rooms in the deepest and most remote corners of their domains? He would have to ask his mom someday. There were some things of demon tradition that truly didn't make sense to him, even now.

"I don't want to tell Star about this, not until I know I am right," Marco answered firmly. "If I am not, I don't want to give her false hope. And if I am, well, I still don't know whether or not I should tell her..."

"Marco, you need to let Star make her own decisions here," Tom replied solemnly. His words were met with a raised eyebrow and a quizzical stare on the part of the boy. "Fine, call me a hypocrite! Doesn't mean I am wrong, Marco."

Marco nodded, "No, Tom, you are right. It is just... If she ends up hurting herself, I don't think I could forgive myself."

"I won't forgive you, either," Tom said in a joking tone. It was no joke, and he hoped the human knew that. 

"Thanks," the boy replied, with an eye roll.

A long beat of silence as they started descending down the final flight of ebony stairs.

"Marco, you know you are an infuriatingly lucky bastard, right?" Tom said. In truth, he wasn't even thinking of the boy's human girlfriend, though well, that too. He meant because of Star. That was luck enough for anyone. "Just want that to be clear."

"I know, man, I know," he replied earnestly. Then, with a grin, "and you are dating Janna... my condolences."

"Oh, come on, she is not as bad as you think," Tom retorted as he pushed the heavy iron doors. He smirked at Marco. "She is way worse!"

The human boy's incipient laugher was cut short at the view of the Room of Maps. It was indeed a sight to behold, Tom had to admit. The floor was crystal glass, perfectly transparent and hard as diamond. Underneath, carved on black volcanic stone was a perfect representation of the ten thousand domains of hell: islands of ebony rock, each detailed to perfection, connected by narrow bridges that would probably not fall to the lava below until the day of judgment itself. The endless pool of magma, underneath it all, represented the domain of The Morning Star, the core of hell, and it showed no known or fixed features. The ceiling of the cavern reflected the light through a series of golden inverted spires, only partly approximating the alien geometries of the heavenly dimensions. In between those two, floated maps of every known world.

Parchment balloons and flying leaflets hung in mid air, magically suspended. Each of them was a map of the dimension it represented in the larger arrangement. If you were to look at the globes floating above the stretch of volcanic stone that mirrored Tom's own domain within hell, for example, you would find the disc-shaped map of Mewnie, right above the miniature of the Lucitor palace. You would also find there a floating leaflet for the tiny dimension hosting St Olga's, and a globe representing Earth. If you unrolled the later just the right way, it would give you a map of the broader universe of Marco's home dimension, with all its stars, planets, and galaxies, updating in real time as their relative positions changed. Those were only a few of the dozens of dimensions that floated above Tom's family lands, the ones to which his carriage could travel unimpeded. Then again, even all those were only a handful among the countless dimensions floating along the nearly infinite room.

"Well, Marco," he chided his companion, who was still staring dumbfounded at the place. "Good luck finding anything in here. Let me know when you start going mad!"

To his surprise, Marco just grinned. "Tom, did I ever tell you about the time I spent sixteen years chasing Hekapoo to get a pair of scissors?"

"You did not," Tom replied. Sixteen years? Marco wasn't even fifteen years old! Was that a joke? He tried not to have his own confusion show, but Marco's smug look told the demon prince he had not succeeded in that. 'Point, Marco', whatever!

"I was older back then," Marco shrugged. His tone of voice had changed: more confident, more mature. Would almost have been hot, if Tom were into that. "I learned a lot of things chasing H-poo. Magic of my own, I believe. Nothing like Star, a few spells here and there, always with a price. But when I got back, I slowly began to forget. I think I needed to forget. Would have been too damaged otherwise. But I had a dream, two days ago. I dreamed of Hekapoo, and I think she was really there, and when I woke up I still remembered a bit of who I was during that dream, of my older self... I remembered a spell, a spell to find things."

"So," Tom commented, still unsure whether he believed the other teen. "You are going to use that spell to locate Moon's killer? To help Star take revenge?"

Marco shook his head. "No. The spell can only locate things I can name, in the language of the spell itself. I remember about fifty words right now, from the dream, twelve are part of the spell itself. Even if I was fully fluent in Riradesh again, I don't think I would know the name of the thing King River described."

"Then?" Tom asked, curious.

"I think it can find Hekapoo," Marco suggested.

"Marco, isn't Hekapoo..." Tom began. Hekapoo was dead, and Marco might be already mad with grief; just as affected as Star was. Tom shuddered.

"I don't know. I don't think she is dead, or not completely dead," Marco said. "If the spell works, if the dream was real, then she must be out there, somehow."

"Ok," Tom reasoned. Nothing lost with trying. "Let's try this spell of yours then."

"Well," Marco seemed nervous. "Remember when I said there was a price for every spell I knew? This one's is bad. For everything found, I forget something of the same kind, Tom. So to use it to find a person means forgetting someone. I don't think I lost anything when casting it in a dream, but if this works... What if it's Jackie? What if it's Star?"

Tom shuddered, understanding. So it was that kind of magic. The demon prince was starting to believe, despite himself, that Marco wasn't entirely talking out of his ass. It fit too much with what he knew of certain magics to be a complete fabrication. Still, this was to help Star. Tom would have happily traded turning Marco into a vegetable to help Star get what she wanted, and he might even do the same to himself. 

"Look at the bright side. It could be Janna," the demon prince joked. A pang in his chest reminded him that he himself would never want to forget Janna, no matter how annoying the girl was sometimes. 

Marco chuckled. "If I forget you, do I also forget Naysaya?"

Then, with a look of determination suddenly taking over his face, Marco began intoning a litany of twelve words in a language even Tom didn't recognize, and he spoke over a thousand. Golden light steamed from the human boy's breath over his closed fist, and he began drawing a complicated script in the air, one that expanded from the center and towards all sides, without the single line of the word ever being broken. The demon prince recognized a few glyphs, like fire, which was similar to the equivalent in the ancient tongue of the lower planes. The more complicated parts were unknown to him. Clearly Marco wasn't kidding when he said he could cast magic. Better never tell Janna of this.

The script coiled into itself, became a sphere of brightness and... fizzled in mid air. Marco looked puzzled at his hand.

"Well, that looked magic to me," Tom shrugged. "Maybe you got the name wrong?" He hoped Marco wouldn't lose any memories for a miscast ritual, but he wasn't sure.

"No, Tom," Marco replied. "The name is right: 'She who owns the blade of fire that crosses the empty place between places; Hekapoo'. Maybe... maybe there is not enough of her for the spell to recognize her," he clenched both fists and looked down in despair.

"Well, Marco," Tom drew closer and rested a hand on the boy's shoulder. "It was a long shot anyways, right? Star will find another way."

"No. Wait!" Marco's eyes lit up again. "I know where to find Hekapoo, if she is to be found anywhere, and she has to be, otherwise she would not have sent that dream!"

Tom let go of Marco as he began the spell anew. The Lucitor prince wasn't sure the dream was truly a vision now, even if the magic was real. How likely was it that Marco had just gotten a normal dream that jogged back some old memories? Or that whatever had sealed those memories inside him, possibly for his own good, had died with Hekapoo? But he said nothing, and let Marco try again.

Once more the boy drew fire, and blade, and many more glyphs the demon did not recognize. But then, around what he swore up and down was Hekapoo's name, he drew the crown of thorns, the twelve pointed circle, Arus'Morgáth. Tom's eyes went wide with surprise at the fact that the boy knew that symbol, "Marco, what are you trying to write?"

"Just 'Hekapoo's dimension'," he replied absently, his concentration elsewhere, going into the spell.

"That doesn't mean dimension, Marco," Tom clarified, unsure if the other boy was listening. "I think you just wrote 'Hekapoo's domain'."

"Yeah, sure, that," replied Marco, missing the significance of the fact. As he said that, the words in the air coiled around themselves and became a ball of lightning. It began moving around the room. Tom and Marco followed. As they moved, maps moved out of their way only to return to their places a second after. Eventually, the sphere came to rest inside a cluster of maps: three large parchment spheres and dozens of smaller strips. It divided into many lights, illuminating the whole set of charts and globes. 

"Tom?" Marco asked, without looking away from the constellation of maps. "Can you take us here?"

Tom looked at the path below, the geography of hell that connected his own domain with that of the Forger of Scissors. There was a path, many even, but they all passed through the same place: the huge citadel in the middle of the floor, all claw-like castles and needle-like spires. It was a place of countless terrors, even to a prince of hell. He should have known. After all, in hell, all roads led to Dis. To Sam's domain.

"It is not going to be easy, Marco. Not like going to St O's, or Earth, or Mewni," Tom shuddered. "There is someone I need to ask for a favor. It will cost me greatly, it might cost my family greatly too. And it will be dangerous, for all of us."

"More dangerous than Star finding this same path and going on her own? Or that any other thing she might try?" Marco asked, his features harder than the demon had ever seen them before. 

He had to admit the boy had a point. It was not like him saying no at this point would stop Star from trying. Tom shuddered at the thought of the princess trying to forge a way through Dis by force. Even having Marco keep quiet wouldn't deter her from finding a way eventually. Maybe she would even try to punch a hole into the fabric of the multiverse by force of will alone. Without scissors, going through Dis, dealing with Sam, might in truth be the safest path, even if it was anything but safe.

"No, probably not," he replied finally. He was also, to his annoyance, beginning to understand what Star saw in the other boy. "Alright, Marco. I'll do this, for Star. On one condition: you are all in, no hesitations, no divided loyalties. We both do this for Star."

\----

Marco had been thinking of Tom's final admonition for hours by the time he reached Earth. He had asked the demon prince for one of his suit jackets, a bit of hair gel, and to borrow his royal carriage for the rest of the day. It turned out driving the hearse was easier than the boy had suspected, you needed only to say where and the undead horse did the rest. Marco talked to the horse for a while, as he sorted out his conflicted feelings. The skeleton was still bitter that nobody had told it of its demise for years, Nonetheless, it did his job without complaint. What it definitely wasn't, however, was any sort of particularly insightful audience for the human's personal troubles.

As the vehicle materialized in front of Jackie's home, Marco looked at the bouquet of roses in his hands, unnaturally red and with a light all of their own, as if flame burned beneath the petals. Hell flowers. Tom had given him his word that they were safe, but the Earth boy still had his doubts. This would be hard enough without his gift trying to eat them before they could talk, or burning his girlfriend's house down.

He walked out and rang the doorbell. Jackie opened up, looking amazing. She looked at him up and down, and burst out laughing, "Hahaha Marco, you look so... fancy?" She paused for a moment, looking behind him. "Sweet ride, though!"

"Okay, okay," he conceded, taking off Tom's jacket and tousling his hair back to normal. Jackie was right, this wasn't him. He just had wanted to make their last date special. "Jackie Lynn Thomas. I am here to take you, on the ultimate date!"

Jackie looked at him puzzled, then a little bit sadly. A flash in her eyes told him she was reading more in his expression than what he wished to show. Jackie always kept talking about them reading each other's mind, and Marco was often half-convinced she could do that to him already. She took the bouquet and motioned him over, "Marco, come on in."

Marco followed her sheepishly, and a bit disappointed. He had wanted to treat Jackie today. It might be the last time he saw her for a while. She deserved better, of course, so much better, but a great date was all he could give her now. Maybe, if he survived, he would one day be able to make it up to her. Was there an easy way to tell your girlfriend you had to go away, for months at least, possibly forever, to cross the depths of hell with your other girlfriend?

"What is this really about, Marco?" Jackie finally broke the silence, as she put the roses in a vase. The water under them heated immediately to a soft boil, and stayed there, bubbling slowly. "No offense, but with that face you look less like you are asking me out, and more like you are on your way to a funeral."

"Remember the dream I told you about?" Marco begun. He would have wanted to give the two of them a few more hours together, before he had to explain. But it was clear his heart wouldn't have been in it anyways. This was already too painful for him, and in a minute he might cause the same pain to Jackie. That idea felt even worse than his own misery. "I went to visit Tom. We found a lead. I am telling Star."

"Are you sure you should be telling her?" Jackie asked pensively. "Marco, you know she is in grief, right? Not thinking straight. This whole quest of revenge thing could be the worst decision she makes in her life..."

"Yes, Jackie, I know," Marco admitted. "And no, I am not sure. But if I don't help her, I think she will do it anyways. I want to be there, to protect her if I can. If not, then at least to support her. And I want to help her honestly. It would be one thing to tell her not to do it, another to withhold this information from her."

"Yeah, because she has always been so forthcoming with the truth..." muttered Jackie. She shook her head. "No, dude, you are right. Telling her is the right thing, just promise me you will try to stop her from doing something really stupid."

"I will," Marco swore. Then he looked into Jackie's eyes, sadly. "Which is why I need to be going with her."

"Well, duh, of course," Jackie replied with a wave of her hand, completely missing the point. Marco gulped.

"It is a long journey without the scissors. I don't know when, or if, we will be back," he finally admitted. It hurt to speak, he felt tears welling inside his eyes. "Jackie, I love you. But it wouldn't be fair for me to ask that you wait until I return. I think... I think we should break up!"

They stared at each other in silence for a while, then he continued. There was a lot he wanted to say, and yet nothing that could be nearly enough, "I love you, like you have no idea! But, well, Star needs me now, and... you don't. If I do come back, and you are free then, and still want to... maybe... no, lets leave it at that for now. I am sorry."

Oh god, he felt like such an asshole. Jackie didn't deserve this. But he had to be there for Star. Jackie was strong. She would do alright. And she was kind. She would understand. Still, Marco felt oh so very small at that moment. Jackie simply stared at him and blinked.

"Marco, I love you too, but sometimes you are kind of an idiot," she stated calmly. It was like a slap to the face.

"I know," he agreed. He began walking back towards the door, shoulders hunched, deflated.

"Not what I meant, Diaz!" Jackie shouted. "The reason you are an idiot, is because it is obvious I am going with you two, dude!"

When Marco turned back, Jackie was smiling, and still shaking her head.

"Wait! Jackie, no, that's even worse, I definitely cannot ask you to..." he began.

"You are not asking, Marco," she retorted. "And I am not asking you either. Even if you do go ahead and break up with me right now, I am still going. Star is still my friend too, despite that stupid voyeur spell, you know?"

"Jackie, no, this is going to be really dangerous!" yelled Marco. He couldn't bear the idea of Jackie dying or getting hurt, and the hard truth was that it was not an improbable outcome in the least. "I mean, the way Tom spoke of the way there... we are going through the bowels of hell, literally! And, well, at the end there is this... this thing that was able to overpower Hekapoo and Star's mom. We could die. You... you could die."

"Shhh, Marco, it's ok," she said, walking towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder, wiping a tear from his face. She flashed him what he had begun to call her 'Prince Jack' grin. "I will protect you."

They kissed. Or Jackie kissed him. Marco was grateful, and guilty. He couldn't help but think that he was still the one dragging Jackie into all of this, putting her at risk. But on the other hand, he didn't know what he would do without her support, without her strength. He could try to be there for Star but, without Jackie, who would be there for him? He couldn't ask her to do that, of course. But he was weak enough not to push her away, if she insisted.

"So, Marco, are we still together?" Jackie finally broke the kiss and asked him. "Because, honestly, I would prefer that, if we ever do break up, is because one of us no longer cares for the other, not because you are silly enough to think I won't follow you into hell."

Tom was right, Marco thought, he was an infuriatingly lucky bastard.

"Jackie, I truly couldn't ask for a better girlfriend," Marco admitted and nodded.

"No, you couldn't. Now, go deliver your other girlfriend the news, dude, before she does something crazy...er. We can do your fancy date when we are all back, I sort of need to pack now. How do you think is the weather in hell?" Jackie laughed and pushed Marco out of the house. Then, turning serious for a moment, she added, "By the way, if you don't come back for me, I'll ask Janna. I know Tom is going after Star, and Janna practically lives with him now. And if you make me go down that route, Marco, I am afraid I will have to kick your ass when I do get there." 

\----

Tom marched back towards his room, his promise to Marco weighting heavy on his mind. Sam was an old friend of the family, and he had a strange, sometimes disturbing, fondness for Tom. But having Sam's friendship was like having a pet viper; that it didn't bite you didn't mean the venom wasn't there, always at the ready. Sam was ancient when Tom's oldest ancestors were young, and powerful in a way that only the Astray One himself could top. If the other demon decided to hurt Marco, or Janna, or Star, well, there was nothing Tom could do to stop him.

"Shadow chains!" cried a familiar voice as the prince Lucitor entered his own chambers. Black ribbons of living darkness coiled around his arms, tying them behind his back. On his bed, naked underneath her open black silk robe, legs crossed, Janna sat grinning. Strewn around her were half a dozen books. Ancient tomes of power older than the Kingdom of Mewni itself.

"Where did you get those?" the demon inquired. He tugged at the arcane bindings holding him. They were strong, much stronger than he expected from Janna. But not nearly strong enough. His eyes lit red and he burned through the conjured restraints with ease.

"Come on! You could have at least pretended those worked," Janna pouted. "It took me hours to get that one to work!"

"You really are taking this seriously, aren't you?" Tom replied, somewhat impressed. Even without much natural talent, the human girl practiced magic with a diligence he had seldom ever seen in anyone. After the trip to St O's she had, if anything, redoubled her efforts. "Still, Janna, you didn't answer. Where are the books from?"

"Your family library, duh," she shrugged. It was not an apology.

Tom raised a hand and all tomes floated gently to a nearby bookcase. He was beginning to learn it wasn't even worth it getting angry at Janna's antics, and anyways he had more serious worries in his mind right now.

"Next time, Janna, ask," he scolded her, uselessly. "There are books there I really wouldn't want to have you damage... and books that are more likely to damage you instead." The flesh-eating ones were among the least dangerous in that later category.

"Aw, someone looks sourer than usual!" the wannabe witch observed. "Heard Marco was visiting. Jealous much?"

"No! ...maybe," Tom hesitated. "But anyways, that's not the point. There is a call I have to make, it is a delicate one, something that could help Star..."

"It is always about Star, isn't it?" Janna grumbled.

"Janna, she lost her mom," Tom observed, glaring back at her. What was with Janna and Star recently? The troublemaker girl had always resented Star on some level, both for her magic and, if he was honest rather than humble, for what she meant to him. But lately it was worse than ever. She bristled at every mention of the mewman princess, and had even refused to attend Moon's wake. "I thought she was your friend too!"

"A friend?" Janna raised an eyebrow. "Is that what she is to you Tom? Really?"

"Yes," he replied annoyed, a few sparks of fire dancing through his fingers. "Yes, that is what she is to me. What I am trying to be to her, Janna. I am trying to be the friend she needs now."

"Sure, sure," Janna nodded. "Not like you are trying to take advantage of her grief to fuck her again, right?"

The demon prince's eyes glowed red at that comment. A strong wind filled the room, coming out of nowhere. Tom's hair flew around him, his body rising into the air as flames exploded below. A guttural voice replacing his usual boyish tone. "NO. I am honestly trying to be a good person, and it hurts, and it is hard, and it is driving me absolutely insane! But by Satan and Belial, I am going to do the right thing this time! And I would appreciate that for once, you didn't imply that I have to be the bad guy!"

Janna smirked, and got up from the bed. She let her black cloak hit the ground, exposing her naked body. "Ah, but Tom, I like it when you are the bad guy. If you are not going to be bad to Star, then how about being bad to me?"

Wait, was that what this was about? A come-on? Tom didn't have time for these games. There was so much he needed to do, so much to arrange. Star needed him! And, at the same time, he couldn't help but notice the moonlight allure of the witch's pale naked body as she reflected the fires of hell. The playful spark dancing in her eyes. The demon prince realized at that moment how, ahem, frustrated he had been this past week, worrying about Star, burying down feelings of his own that the mewman definitely shouldn't have to deal with. That he managed to be a decent person didn't mean the feelings weren't there. That it didn't hurt to be around his ex. Janna offered him an outlet.

"Fine!" he shouted. Honestly, he needed to unwind. If he called Sam in this state, who knows what might happen. 

Tom raised a hand and Janna's body began floating up towards him, like a marionette pulled from strings. She delighted in her helplessness, a grin like that of a mad woman. He moved his claw across the air, and a whip of fire lashed at her from nowhere, hitting her arm, burning the skin. She moaned. She fucking moaned of pleasure like if he had just given her the most sensual caress. Janna was a freak. It was perhaps her best feature.

She lifted her own hand, and Tom felt himself being yanked towards her by some unseen force. He could have resisted it, of course. He didn't.

His body smashed against Janna's and she wrapped her legs around him. The demon prince controlled the flames, made them vanish before he seriously hurt the human girl. No matter how fast she was improving, he didn't trust her to put up her own defenses. She craved the pain a bit too much sometimes, it made even Tom uneasy. But right now, as she began unbuttoning his coat and then his shirt, the Lucitor boy could almost forget the burning signs of unhealthiness in what they were doing.

He kissed her. Then, in an impulsive decision, he bit her lower lip and pulled back. A metallic taste filled his mouth as he drew a single drop of blood. He looked down into her eyes for signs of fear or distress. What he saw, was hunger. A hunger echoing his own. Janna was the only person he knew, that didn't recoil of Tom's darkest impulses, who didn't want him to suppress them. She fetishized his darkest side; embraced it. It wasn't exactly healthy and it wasn't exactly safe, but it felt good. It felt good to let go; and to be loved for it.

She traced a line through his pants with her finger, a thin tendril of blue flame burning away at the fabric. The demon's skin barely felt her weak spell, but the clothes ripped and smoldered nonetheless. Soon they were embracing naked in mid air. Tom dug his claws into her back. She whimpered appreciatively. "Tom, damn it! Fuck me!"

He did. He plunged into her. Gently at first, but deep. She clamped her legs around his waist and begun her own hip motions. Tom took the invitation for what it was and began to thrust hard and fast. He could feel her heart beating even through her howling in his ear. Lightning and fire danced across her skin as she drank deep from his own demonic power. It was monstrously dangerous, but the demon prince dared not interrupt her. It was not clear to him which sensation was the most intense for the witch, the sex or the magic, or if there was indeed a difference between the two. 

They floated down towards his bed, all around them a rapid twister of red flames and dark-blue bats made out of raw magical energy danced, following the rhythm of their mating. Janna's eyes were blank. She was in trance, faded away into a realm which words or reason would not reach, only raw sensation. Tom forced himself to keep conscious, to reign himself in even as he wanted nothing more than to let go. He grunted and gasped, but stayed afloat, thrusting into her with wild but conscious hunger. He knew the girl below him was too fragile for him to completely lose control. Yet he edged towards brutal abandon, and towards his own climax.

Janna's body tensed as she arrived to her own orgasm. Her walls around Tom's cock clenched violently, causing him to burst as well, emptying into her. The troublemaker girl's hands stretched out towards the ceiling, and lightning crackled all around the room, flowing out from the tips of each of her fingers.

They fell silent for a while, relaxing into each other's arms. Tom's muscles had turned from the hardness of stone to the softness of wet earth. Janna literally glowed, a soft reddish afterglow of the powers that had just flowed through her.

"See, Tom? I told you this way was better than the books," she whispered, softly.

"And I told you, it was like trying to be a lightning rod," Tom replied. Some measure of worry in his voice. The girl was playing Russian roulette with energies too destructive for her body to contain. And he kept allowing it, because it helped him to let his own frustrations out, and because it distracted him from Star. Did that mean he was still the bad guy then, after all?

\----

"I call the darkness unto me, from deepest depths of earth and sea, from ancient evils unawoken, to break the one who can't be broken," intoned Star. It was not even the words of the spell that terrified Marco as he approached the princess, nor the dark clouds that seemed to gather around her as she spoke them. It was the cold fury in his friend's eyes. 

He had never seen Star so focused, so determined. Even when she had broken Toffee's glass prison, seemingly so long ago, she didn't look nearly as threatening. In front of her was a stone statue, crude in its shape and features, but clearly representing a tall faceless female form with six arms. "To blackest night I pledge my soul, and crush my heart to burning coal, to summon forth the deathly power, to-see-my-hated-foe-devoured!"

A beam of inky purple darkness exploded out of Star's wand, as she stammered the end of the spell as fast as she could. The crystal half-star turned pitch black as the power its owner had summoned passed through it, venomous and corrosive. The ray of death hit the center of the rough statue, right in the middle of its torso. With a horrible rumble, the form cracked and exploded, fragments of rock flying in every direction. Marco jumped to evade one such projectile, while those headed for Star bounced away in mid air. Waves of purple magic flashed all around the princess. They looked very much like the golden waves of the magical armor that had protected Jackie in her duel with Princess White.

Star closed her eyes and lifted her left hand from the wand. She made a fist in mid air, and opened her eyes. They shone with blinding green light, a brightness that extended to the heart marks on her cheeks as well. The next moment, a new statue sprouted out from the ground itself, crude but fully formed, right beside the one Star had just destroyed. Marco noticed then the many piles of rubble around the courtyard where Star stood. It was obvious she had been doing this for a while.

"Hey Star," Marco drew attention to himself, trying the best to sound casual. Honestly, he felt more than a bit unnerved by what he had seen so far. Star never took practicing magic this seriously before, and although her magics were often violent, there was something different about these spells.

The way the princess turned her sight towards him - quick like a cobra, fixing those incandescent green eyes on his own - did nothing to make the boy feel any less disturbed. He had to remind himself that it was only Star, his best friend, his girlfriend. She would never hurt him.

"Marco?" she blinked, and her eyes went back to their normal cerulean blue. Her expression softened. She even smiled, as much as he had seen her smile since they arrived back from St. O's at least, which was not much of a smile at all. "What are you doing back on Mewni?

"No, that's not it," she muttered quietly, to no one in particular, glancing at the empty space to her right. She frowned. Slowly, she turned back towards Marco and lowered her wand. "Don't worry, I am not leaving yet. I said I'd see you before then. Is not like I am going to forget that, Marco."

"Well, that's the thing, Star," the boy spoke, walking towards her, across the pilled up debris covering her improvised training grounds. "I am going with you. Or well, we are all going together. I have a lead on Hekapoo, I think she is alive, or partly alive, and she can help us find the thing that... well... the thing that..."

"Killed my mom?" Star finished the sentence, unflinching, a quizzical but dispassionate look directed at Marco. It was frankly more unnerving than any other reaction he could have expected. "You can say it. I do know she is dead, you know?"

It was then that Marco noticed the blackened tendrils expanding out from Star's hands, covering the entirety of her palms and stretching as far up as the elbow. "Star, what happened to your arms?!"

"Oh, right, those," she shrugged. "Is just the spell, Marco. Just a minor side-effect."

She inhaled and blinked. Her eyes shone green again. Slowly, the tendrils began shifting and blurring, the darkened flesh seemingly vanishing into thin air. Soon, the skin and her hands had recovered its rosy color. "See? Nothing to worry about. So, you were saying, Hekapoo is alive? Are you sure?"

"Ah, well, that," Marco stammered, still off balance. "She appeared to me on a dream and told me where to go, or at least gave me a clue. I know how that sounds like, but I swear it is not just wishful thinking. It was really her!"

"Marco, I believe you," Star smiled. "I know she can visit you in dreams. Wonder why you and Jackie don't consider her a creep too, but I suppose that doesn't matter much now."

"Wait, what?" Marco looked at her best friend, both perturbed and confused. Then he thought of a couple other dreams he'd had before involving Hekapoo. In one of them, right before he started dating Star, he had dreamed of the mewman girl too. Except now he wasn't entirely sure it had been a normal dream. He even remembered seeing that scene again, briefly, back in St Olga's, through the All-Seeing Eye spell. In the confusion of that horror show, and the fight that followed, he had almost forgot. "Star, that night, when I dreamed... that I was with you, and Hekapoo. That was real? You were there?!"

The mewman blushed slightly, but did not avert her gaze from Marco, nor did she apologize. She simply nodded. "... yeah."

Marco had literally no response to that admission.

"So, where are we going?" Star eventually changed the subject. Marco finally figured out what was creeping him out. It wasn't that Star seemed scary, or angry, it was that she seemed muted somehow, distant, uncharacteristically devoid of emotion. "And why is it that you are helping me, Marco? I thought you didn't approve of revenge."

"Star, we are all going to hell!" he shouted, angrily, trying to elicit at least some sort of reaction. She smiled lazily back at him, awaiting any further explanation. Not that it was too surprising that she was unimpressed about that, after all, given her ex. "Tom is arranging a way to get to Hekapoo's old place as we speak, seems like our best bet so far. Apparently it is a bit outside of where he can take us himself, though, so it might not be that easy to get there."

"I see," Star muttered. "Is that all?"

"No, Star, that's not all!" Marco shouted, advancing towards her, trying to grab her arm. For a second, he made contact with the hardened air, as a flash of purple waves stood between his fingers and the princess' skin. She glanced at him with detached curiosity. Eventually, she nodded and the barrier fell, allowing him to grasp her. "Seriously Star, you are scaring me out of my skull right now! I thought seeing you mad the other day was bad, but this is way worse. You seem cold, your arm feels cold. Like, ice cold, seriously! No matter what color you make it be. I know your mom just died, I know you are partly in shock. So please, talk to me! If there is anything I can do, any way I can be there for you..."

"Marco," Star stopped him, putting a finger to his lips. "That's why I don't want you coming with me. I know you don't want to see this, I didn't want you to see this. But it is what I need to do. To avenge my mom, and to be alright. I will be back, I promise, from the thing I promised to do, and from all of this as well. But right now, I need this, I need to master it, I need the power. So many things I didn't learn before. So many tools I might need, that my mom didn't have, that Hekapoo didn't have. All knowledge is good knowledge, I think. I know how this looks, but I am not going to be the 'dark queen ascending', Marco, I promise. I'll stop before that point."

Marco nodded sadly. Then he leaped to hug Star. She tensed for an instant, as if ready to strike back at the contact, and then she let herself be embraced. For a long time neither of them said anything, they just held one another amid the ruins of so many consumed statues.

"Star, I am going with you, we are going with you," Marco finally spoke. "You are right, I don't like seeing you like this. But I think I would like even less to sit back on Earth while you do this, just wondering what is going on with you. I'll be there to be your boyfriend, to be your best friend, Star, no matter what. And if you do go dark, just know that you are taking me with you as well. Jackie too, apparently. It is not what I would prefer, so please keep that in mind, Star, but if you go dark, we are going dark together!"

The princess hugged him back. Her breath suddenly erratic. She was sobbing, and yet she smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the next were originally going to be a single one but split due to length. It might be a bit more of a slow going than the past three in terms of "wham!" moments, but I think it was due time we checked up on everyone for a bit, before this all goes to hell, literally.
> 
>  **Coming up next** : _Chapter 21: Sam, I Am_ (For real this time!)


	21. Sam, I Am

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which charades abound, a deal with the devil is struck, a vote is held, and a grand party is discussed.

They had gotten barely an hour of rest after their literally electrifying fuck session. Tom had insisted that they showered and dressed up before the call. Somehow the demon prince had gotten hold of the dark green dress Janna wore to their first date, and had demanded she put it on. On her head, he had placed again the live spider broach. The fledgling witch magically petrified the vermin this time, partly for her own safety, but mostly to show him that she could. Tom himself wore an impeccable white suit, that the girl had come to associate with those occasions in which he sought truly to impress.

Janna had thought about a lot of things as she bathed in the steaming hot waters of Tom's shower. Fortunately, it wasn't lava, although it felt like it might as well be. The demon prince's shower had essentially two settings: hot and boiling. Then again, the human girl was almost used to it by now.

She had thought about their recent encounter, of course. About the pain, and the pleasure, and the overwhelming sensation of power as she dug deep into Tom's energies. 'Unlimited powaaah!' she thought with a chuckle, examining the burned tips of her fingers. Was it really true that she got more power out of banging Tom that she got by studying and practicing known spells? Or was it the other way around? That the more proficient she got at her craft otherwise, the more she could draw forth from the demon during their union? After all, they had had sex before she started learning magic, and nothing like this had ever happened back then.

She had thought about Star. About how the mewman princess irritated her so. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong with herself, with her own instincts regarding Star. She was, after all, or used to be, her friend. But at the same time, she couldn't control how much it irked her whenever Tom talked about his ex. It always had bothered her somewhat. But it was so much worse now, after that night back in St Olga's, after she had waited alone for Tom to comfort the princess. Janna couldn't for the life of her say what was it that made that night so significant. Was it that Star and Tom had gotten back to being in good terms as friends? It didn't seem like a big enough deal. Yet, somehow, it was. Alone in the woods, she had let her jealousy towards Star blossom into bitter resentment, and now she couldn't shake it off, no matter how much she tried.

Finally, she thought about this mystery person that made Tom so nervous. 'An old friend of the family' is all the boy said about the other demon. But it was obvious from his reactions that the demon prince was terrified of this guy, and it wasn't clear why. The more nervous Tom got, the more eager Janna was to meet this 'Sam'. And now, she was about to. She had asked and begged Tom to let her be present. Finally, she had threatened to barge in either way. At that point, he had relented, admonishing her to try to be silent unless asked to speak, to be on her best behavior.

"Or as close to good behavior as it is possible in your case," had said the boy, with a groan. It was so weird how similar him and Marco were sometimes, not that either would welcome the comparison.

Tom Lucitor, prince of hell, knelt before his own mirror, and motioned Janna to do the same. Puzzled, she acquiesced. Who the literal hell was this guy that Tom felt the need to bow down to?

"Mirror," Tom took a deep breath, "call Sam."

"CALLING..."

A billowing wind, the crackle of distant thunder, and the mirror went dark. The many flames of Tom's room faded out into nothingness all of a sudden. Their only source of light was now the red glow of the cascade of molten magma that served as the demon's decorative fountain. Black spots began appearing on the mirror, until they covered its entire surface. When the glass had darkened in its entirety, a swirling maelstrom of ghostly cerulean light began reflecting upon the opal surface. A cacophony of cries and lamentations filled the air, and underneath that, Janna thought she could hear a chorus of voices chanting in an ancient tongue. As the pale teal currents became clearer and clearer, the human girl was able to see that they were formed by a mass of phantasmal human faces, all grimacing in agony.

The mirror zoomed in deeper into the haunted void, until it came to show a naked young man. Most of his features, and his nude form, were hidden from her sight by the mass of what had to be rivers upon rivers of human souls (Or were they mewman? Something else entirely?). What bits of skin she could see where white. Not white as in Caucasian. White like a marble statue, and beautiful in exactly the same inhuman way. His hair was golden and shone with a brightness that would have put the sun to shame. His eyes glowed with a blue light so intense, it was literally impossible to meet his gaze.

"Who dares summon the final cold, the endless shadow, the sword aflame inevitable?" boomed the unearthly creature's voice, words that echoed like huge brass bells. He glanced at Janna, and she felt a presence so powerful, a well of magic so deep, even through the mirror, that it made Tom's energies seem like a roadside puddle by comparison. The blue eyes fixed themselves on the Prince Lucitor and then... their blinding light went out. Two normal human eyes replaced them, albeit still of an unusual azure intensity. "Tom? Tom Lucitor?!"

Sam snapped his fingers and the flames in Tom's room returned, the image inside the mirror dissolved in a blink. A rather preppy college dorm room replaced the sea of screaming faces. The boy sitting there on a messy twin bed was dressed in simple brown khaki shorts and a pink polo shirt. His face was still inhumanly beautiful and the tone of marble, but it now wore a very human smile. "Tom! Long time no see, bro! You looking good! Hit the gym recently?"

"Eh, something like that," Tom blushed and ran a hand through the back of his neck.

The blond boy looked at Janna, then back at the purple demon prince, clearly drawing his own conclusions as to Tom's exercise routine. "Ah, I see. Niiice. High five, brah!"

Incredibly, he actually held his palm up, on the other side of the mirror. The boy waited then, stupidly, for the second part of a gesture that definitely didn't work at a distance. Janna felt confused, just as much as she felt disappointed.

"Sam, with all due respect, is this charade necessary?" Tom asked, timidly. A piercing glare of fulminating blue light fixed upon the heir to the Lucitor crown. It went away again as soon as it had come, and the other boy's eyes went back to normal. Or perhaps, the blinding light was normal, and the human-looking orbs an illusion.

"It is all a charade either way, Tom," Sam shrugged. "It is always a charade, and then oblivion. Might as well be pleasant to my favorite Lucitor! Besides, the whole 'sword aflame' bit gets old after the first few eons... Speaking of which, what are you two doing on the floor?! Stand up, come on! We are all friends!"

The boy kept motioning up with his hand until both Tom and the human girl had gotten back on their feet.

He smiled at Janna, "Hey, I am Sam, Tom's old bud, nice to meet you!"

"Janna," she replied, still feeling off balance at the sudden shift in tone from the boy. Damn, that was usually her job. Feeling like she had to at least try to surprise the stranger, she added, "So are you the devil? Because that'd be cool."

Tom glared at her. Sam laughed raucously.

"Oh man! The devil? THE? No way! A devil, sure. Or, well, something like that," he replied, making a dismissive gesture with his hand that was perhaps meant to signal humbleness, but was way too obvious to be sincere. Or perhaps, it was calculatedly insincere. "THE devil, though? Nah, J-Flame, I am not The Morning Star..."

The apprentice witch felt herself relax just a bit. In a way, it was probably good news that they weren't having a chat with Lucifer himself. Even if a part of her had wished that had been the case.

"I mean, I know the guy. A truly inspiring bro. Really doesn't know when to fold them, and takes it all way too seriously, but fuck me if he is not the best motivational speaker I've ever known! He makes you want to follow him into, well," he looked around and shrugged.

Janna once again felt unsteady. Just who the godforsaken here was this guy? He sounded like an idiot half of the time. But it was obvious he was being an idiot on purpose, and laughing at them all the way! And he spoke of the Dark Prince of Hell the way Marco spoke of goddamn Justin Towers!

"But enough small talk," added Sam. He sighed. "Tom, I know you. You never call unless you need something. So what is it this time, bro? What do I need to bail you out on? Let's hear it."

"Sorry, Sam. I'd like to call you more often, of course, but, well, I just know how busy you always are, didn't want to trouble you just to chat..." the demon prince apologized. Even Janna knew that was a lame excuse. The boy in the polo shirt actually rolled his eyes at it. Tom relented, realizing his attempts to butter up the other demon were worse than pointless, "Ugh. Fine, fine. Sam, I humbly request your permission to cross through the city of Dis, and through the hells within your domain..."

"Tom, you are my bro! Your family and I go way back, like way-way back. You don't even need to ask!" Sam replied effusively. "You are free to walk my neighborhood any time you want, man. I wish you would come and visit me, but is not like you have to do that either if you are not up for it, bro. Seriously, no problem!"

"... and I would like to take some people with me." Tom added, tentatively.

Sam looked pensive for a moment, his smile gone. Then he looked at Janna, and brightened up once again. "Your chick? Sure. For you, I can do that. Only the one, right?"

"Four besides myself," the demon prince clarified. "I need your word that they will get safe passage. All of them."

Sam whistled. Then he frowned. He seemed to mull it over, or at least made a show of pretending to do so. "That doesn't sound much fun on my end, bro. How about two out of four? You bring the four, I let you and two others out alive, my choice! Sounds good?"

It was surreal to get a counter-offer like that from a guy dressed like something out of an Ivy League admissions poster. Janna couldn't avoid being a little bit freaked out, as she realized, from Tom's disturbed expression, that the offer was probably a serious one.

"Sam, no, they all need to get through unharmed," Tom continued, only slightly shaken. "This is sort of important. I wouldn't ask otherwise. Maybe there is another way? Something I can offer? Another favor I can owe you?"

"Bro, you owe me way too many favors as it is," he lifted both his palms up. "You are asking me to let four mortals through Dis, alive. It goes against everything Dis is supposed to be about. Against everything I am supposed to be about. It is like, my thing, bro! Sorry, can't do. No deal."

Sam paused for a moment. He and Tom exchanged glances, three eyes on two. But it was obvious who had the final word, and by a wide margin.

"I can give you one other option," the alabaster devil finally spoke, with a grin. She pointed at Janna. "How about this? The chick's soul upfront, you and three mortals of your choice go through, no other conditions. Sweet, nah?"

Tom balked at that, looking truly horrified, which pleased the human girl more than she let on. But before he could say anything, Janna interjected.

"My soul is not Tom's to give," she noted. "But I guess I could give you a good deal on it, myself. Nothing upfront, though. The five of us go through, and you still need to sweeten the deal for me personally. Then I pay up say, a century from now? No time at all from your perspective, right? What do you say? Worth chatting about?"

"Janna!" Tom yelled at her, his eyes glowing red. "I told you to be quiet! That's not a deal you want to make."

"It is not a deal I would accept," Sam shrugged. "But I like your spunk, J-Flame! Tell you what: Why don't the two of us have a chat, alone, without your boyfriend running interference? I feel like we could reach an interesting understanding. Something way more fun than her soul or a choice of two deaths."

"No way!" Tom shouted. "She has no idea what she is doing!"

"That's what he said!" Sam responded, laughing at his own joke. "But don't worry, bro. I swear I won't seduce your chick. Not carnally, at least! I mean, you know I don't swing that way!"

"Please, Sam, there must be something I can offer you instead!" Tom begged.

Sam looked at Tom, his eyes lingering up and down over the demon prince's body. Eyes suddenly slitted, like those of a snake. He licked his lips. "No, Tom, there isn't. Not even that." His tone carried a coldness now that belied everything about the dumb jock he had been playing up to that point.

"I'll give you that, Sam... gladly," the Prince Lucitor continued. Janna wasn't sure if they were talking about what she thought they were talking, but she let her imagination run wild. "For safe passage for me and just one other!"

"The mewman princess, you mean? Don't you need the boy warrior too, at least, to find your way once on the other side?" Sam retorted. 

Wait, he knew about Star? And Marco? Janna was yanked out of her fantasy and into the grips of shock. So the other boy knew exactly what this was all about, from the beginning. He had been playing them the entire time, that much was obvious even before this point. But only now was Janna beginning to realize to what extent he was toying with them. How had he put it? 'It is always a charade'.

"I am afraid that wouldn't work either, anyways. Although I did want you to at least offer, Tom. Nice to know there is a price for that." The blond devil shrugged. "No. I think I like my idea better, I'll negotiate with Miss Ordonia here instead. For what it is worth, I'll give her my fairest deal."

"No! Forget it," Tom bellowed. "I won't allow that! By right of domain, she is in my lands, under my protection, and..."

Sam smirked at that. It was as if he had just heard an old joke. "I am afraid, it is not up to you... 'bro'."

That instant, the entire world around Janna went dark.

\----

It was like something out of an old movie: the dim lit bar, the stench of tobacco, the faceless patrons swinging around in the tiny dance floor. Janna sat on a small circular table for two, and on the other side, Sam grinned at her, dressed in a pinstripe suit and wearing a matching trilby hat. In the background, out of literally nowhere, floated the tunes of Elvis Presley's "Devil in Disguise". That, Janna thought, was a bit on the nose.

'Ok, Janna Ordonia, you are having a deal with the devil type situation; you basically prepared your entire life for this moment, you got this,' she reminded herself. Sam made a gesture with his hand and two sets of glasses appeared in front of them, already filled.

"Old Fashioned?" he asked. "Seems appropriate. But of course, I can change it..." He looked around. "All of it."

"Sorry, I am not drinking," replied Janna. That was a lesson from her first date with Tom she would not soon forget.

"As you wish," shrugged the devil. "But tell me Janna, I am curious. How is ol' Tommy Boy in the sack?"

Wait. What?! Janna had to hold herself from doing a double take again. It wasn't just the question itself, it was the tone with which Sam had asked. He wasn't mocking her, at least not blatantly. He wasn't just making strangely personal small talk either. He seemed genuinely curious, conspiratorial even; a twinkle of excitement in his eyes. That's not how she expected this conversation to go at all. Was it perhaps a negotiating tactic? To keep her off balance?

"What is it to you?" she retorted. Then, unable to contain her own curiosity, "Do you actually like Tom? Men, in general?"

'Right, Janna, real smooth, ask the devil if he is gay, why don't you? There is a brilliant negotiating tactic!' she reproached herself.

"Why yes, of course. I am what you might call..." he looked at his drink, took a sip and shrugged again, "... old fashioned. Your kind only came around a bit after my time, my dearest daughter of Eve."

Her kind? Daughter of Eve? Did he mean women? Like, in general? That had to be some bullshit! Janna frowned. "So, that whole biblical stuff is for real, or are you doing it for show?"

"Both," Sam smiled, clearly enjoying her confusion. He gestured all around them, "It is all a show, after all. Props and actors in a comedy play with only one possible punchline. But I do try to go for things that would be familiar to you, and it is the truth that my kind predates that particular distinction."

Interesting as the implications of that admission might be, that wasn't getting her anywhere. "Ok, so you like Tom, and you are annoyed at him for not calling you more often, and that's why you want my soul or to kill two of his friends?"

When you put it like that, it was monumentally petty.

"Ah, miss Ordonia, I knew you were perceptive," Sam retorted, seemingly delighted. "That's some of it. I do like making Tommy squirm, and he did snub my latest party invitation. But I do also really loathe to let people through Dis unscratched. It is terrible for my image, you see?"

His image? What image? This guy changed faces and tone like Brittney changed clothes! Then it hit Janna. There was a third motive, one that was obvious after you had seen all this performance, all the tricks and charades. 'It is always a charade, and then oblivion'. Sam talked murder and soul bartering in the same breath as sex, drinks and even polite pleasantries, and that was the one part that wasn't an act. He genuinely didn't care. Didn't rank one of those as more sacred or more foul than the others. At least, Janna hoped that was true.

"I don't know if that's a lie, about your image, but that's not the real reason either," Janna insisted. "You don't care about my soul, or about Tom sleeping with you, or about the lives of my friends, and I don't think you care about your reputation. You are doing all of this just to amuse yourself! Because you are bored!"

Of course, from Janna's perspective, her soul or her life were expensive prices to pay. So if she negotiated from her point of view only, she would have to pay an astronomically high cost to offer Sam something equivalent. But if her interlocutor was valuing them for entertainment, then all she had to do is to offer something more entertaining, rather than something more valuable!

If she expected hers to be a piercing read, however, she was sorely disappointed. Sam merely laughed and clapped his hands twice.

"Bingo! Now you are getting somewhere! Yes, I have more souls than I know what to do with and, after you have killed a few trillion mortals, there is very little variety in that business as well. And I'd bet you the apples of paradise themselves that teasing Tom gives me more pleasure in the end than having him be mine ever would," he chuckled. "What can I say, I am just trying to get a little bit of fun back into an unbearably tedious and near-interminable existence, just like you say. Some humor back into the dull play. 'Life's a laugh and death's a joke' as you kids say."

Smiling at that confession, Janna sat silently, thinking carefully of what she could offer that might amuse the ancient demon. Her interlocutor seemed not the least bit impatient as she pondered her options.

"Fine," she spoke. "I have an idea. How about you invite all five of us to that party you were talking about? I'll get Tom to go, for your teasing pleasure. And how often you have living mortals there? It should amuse you more than killing two more people would, I'd think, and your reputation should not be in the line if we are there for your entertainment. The one condition is that we get to cross to where we are going afterwards, and to return the same way, and no harm shall come to any of us."

"But what if you guys abuse that last clause to spoil my party? Or, with all due disrespect, Janna, to rob me blind?" Sam objected. He was completely calm. At the same time, he hadn't needed an instant to think his objections. He had spoken the moment she had finished her offer. Either he was an unbelievably fast thinker, he could read her mind, or else this was the direction in which the conversation was always supposed to go. Any of those was a possibility with this guy, really. "If I offer you my blanket protection, I would be inviting into my home people who I am powerless to defend against."

Janna was sure that much was a lie. Not harming them and being unable to stop them were two different things. Another charade then? Either way, it was a cue for her to sweeten the deal, or to address the concern, genuine or not, and see where that led her.

"Then promise no harm shall come to any of us, as long as we don't try to harm you, rob you or ruin your party," Janna amended. A conditional protection, rather than a blanket one. If the demon had meant it only as a bartering prod, then he would need to prod again.

"Now, that's an idea," the suited boy smirked at Janna in enthusiastic agreement, and she knew then that the conversation was still following his plan, not hers. "All five of you shall come to my party, this coming weekend. You will stay the night before and the night after, three in total, and I shall treat you all like my honored guests. No harm shall befall you while you are in my domain, so long as you adhere to all rules of hospitality towards myself and mine. Afterwards you will be allowed safe passage back through my lands, should you truly need it. Deal?"

He extended his hand. 

Janna left him waiting as she pondered the implications. It was not like it was her idea, although it felt like it. It was not like she was in control, although Sam had gotten out of his way to make her believe so. But in the end, it was probably the fairest deal she was ever going to get from him. Despite the feeling that she ought not to, Janna shook the devil's hand.

\----

"Don't 'bro' me!" Tom yelled. "I said you are bargaining with me or not at all, Sam!"

The boy in the mirror, wearing the pink polo shirt and khaki shorts, just looked back amused. Janna looked down at her hands, and at the stack of four black envelopes she was now holding. Tom looked at her with terrified surprise.

"Janna! What did you just do?! When?" Tom glared back at Sam accusingly. "You stopped time! Messed with reality in my domain!"

"Ah, what's a little liberty like that between bros, Tom?" the other boy chuckled. "Besides, I gave her my fairest deal, man, just like I said I would."

"Your fairest? Your fairest?! The plague is your fairest!!" the Prince Lucitor unleashed, fire flowing all around them. Sam let him be, seeming rather unimpressed.

"Actually, Tom," Janna interrupted. "I think we are all invited to the Frat Party from Hell, and if we go and behave, then we all get to cross through."

"If?" Tom glared at Janna, eyes glowing red. "You made a deal with Sam that has the word 'if' in it?!"

"Ahem," the blond boy in the mirror coughed. "I don't want to interrupt the marital dispute, people. But I have stuff to get back too. People to deceive, worlds to destroy. You know, the usual. See you all there this weekend. I promise it'll be a blast! By the way, Janna, you are wrong; it won't be just a rager, actually, but a masquerade ball! The details are on the invites. No worries, the costumes are on me. Just, keep in mind that not wearing them, or not playing along, would be real uncool."

'This too, is my sacred rule of hospitality, and you shall not dare violate it' he might as well have said. Janna frowned. Tom was right. She was an idiot. She had just agreed to a game for which she did not know the rules.

There was an explosion of blue flames on the other end, some of which flew out into Tom's room through the mirror, and then the call dropped. Tom walked towards his couch and sank in it, deflated.

"Well, I suppose that could have possibly gone even worse."

\----

The five teens had chosen to meet at Marco's place. Jackie had skated there from her own place. Star and Marco had taken Tom's carriage back from Mewni. The demon prince himself had instead used the gargoyle-powered lift, and brought Janna along. It was the best possible logistics without a working pair of dimensional scissors, assuming they were all in. Hell, they probably where all in now, no matter what, because of the stupid deal Janna had made, Marco thought.

"Ok, let me see if I understand this," spoke the boy, exasperated. "We can cross through the lands of this Sam person, but only if we spend three days at his place, and go to his weird costume party. And if any of us is not on their best behavior..."

He made a point of glaring at Janna, who was making a point of her own of ignoring him in return. Instead, she appeared to busy herself playing with the four black envelopes in her hands.

"... if any of us makes a faux pas, and we don't exactly know for sure what is or isn't a faux pas, then he is free to kill us," the human boy continued. Tom nodded in grim agreement. "That is, assuming he even respects the deal in the first place!"

"He will, Marco," Tom assured him. "Sam is many things, but I have never known him to break a promise. That sort of thing is a big no-no in the underworld, actually. Misleading and lying is all fair game, but vow-breaking is, well, almost unthinkable under these circumstances. The question is whether it is even possible for us to keep our end of the bargain."

"I don't see why it wouldn't be," Jackie argued. "Don't break things, don't steal, wear the costumes, play along. Sounds easy enough to me!"

Marco knew Jackie well enough to realize that she liked the idea of dressing up in costume again. He knew better than anyone else that she had very much enjoyed doing so in St O's. So, for her, the opportunity of disguising herself again was a boon rather than an obstacle. He tried to meet her eyes for a conspiratorial glance, but she was not looking his way.

The skateboarder girl had not said anything of the sort, but he could tell she was not entirely thrilled with him after their last conversation. It was not like they were fighting or anything. But obviously Jackie hadn't loved that he tried to break up with her, even for ostensibly selfless reasons. Marco realized he owed the girl an apology.

"Yeah, yeah, that's true," spoke Star absentmindedly, scratching her left arm. She was lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling without looking at any of them. It didn't sound like she was agreeing with Jackie, but rather responding to someone else, someone only she could see. She sat up all of a sudden. "No, Jackie, you are wrong. It will be hard to do. He would not have offered that deal if it was going to be easy to comply for us. It is a game for him, after all, and you don't make a game without a challenge."

"Well, Star," spoke Janna crossly. "He is bored, nothing wrong with that! It is a better deal than any of the ones he was willing to offer Tom!"

"Right, right, bored," Star rolled her eyes. "Excellent excuse. Will remind it the next time I feel like killing two out of five of your friends because I want to be amused, Janna."

It was obviously sarcasm, but something in the tone Star said that still gave Marco the chills. Janna glared at the princess and the mewman glared back.

"Anyways," Tom interrupted, pushing himself forward to sit in between the two girls, blocking their line of sight to one another. "That theory about Sam being bored? I don't buy it. Not that anything Star said about this being a game, and thus a challenge, is wrong. But Sam doesn't do things on a whim, there is always a reason. I bet his boredom is just another charade."

"Does it matter, Tom?" Janna spat. "I got us the only deal that does not involve any guaranteed deaths. You think you could have done better?"

Janna and Tom bickered some more, but Marco wasn't listening. He kept his eyes on Star, who was looking towards his window and nodding. Suddenly, she turned around to glare at him. It was weird how glaring was something Star did routinely now, it seemed like her sight had two modes: spaced out or burning intensity. "Marco, assuming we do this. Then what? What are we looking for on the other side?"

"I told you, Star," he answered nervously. "We are looking for Hekapoo. She is out best lead to find whomever... whomever killed your mom."

"Marco, Hekapoo is dead," Star observed. It was not a question. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that everyone was looking at him now.

"I... I don't think so, Star," Marco tried to argue. "Or, if she is, not all of her is dead. She told me to look for her, in the dream!"

Janna coughed. But everyone else seemed to be taking the boy at his word. Star shifted her eyes back to the window, before looking towards Marco again.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked. Marco nodded.

"Well," Jackie interrupted finally. "I think we should first vote on whether or not we are doing this."

Marco nodded, and so did Tom and Star. Janna crossed her arms.

"Pretty sure you all know which is my vote," said Janna.

"I vote yes too," spoke Jackie.

"Yes," followed Marco.

"Fine," grumbled Tom.

They all looked at Star, expectantly.

\----

Star pondered the situation for a moment. It was as good as any lead she currently had, given how much Glossaryck was not being forthcoming about the creature that killed her mom. She looked up at the ceiling, at the floating little man. A translucent ghost, blue and green, the color of seaweed. He stared blankly at her, with infuriating indifference.

Star knew none of her friends could see him, and knew that she shouldn't tell them about it. They wouldn't understand. They would think she was crazy. Janna might have believed her, if she wasn't so angry at her all the time now. Marco would balk, taking it as another sign of her slowly going evil, or mad, and frankly Star didn't have the patience to deal with that conversation a third time. Jackie? Well, things with Jackie were super awkward now a days, and what did the girl even know of ghosts?

Maybe she ought to tell Tom? She wouldn't have considered it even a week before. But the last few days Tom had been on a surprisingly excellent behavior, and he knew more about ghosts and dead people than anyone else she knew. Besides, he was the only one who didn't get so damn freaked out with her now. He was the only one who didn't think she was going dark. Or, at least, the only one who didn't care.

She became aware of the expectant stares of all her friends. They had all come together to help her, and now they were just waiting for her to approve their plan. It was a nice thoughtful plan too, except that...

She glanced again at the windowsill. Hekapoo's ghostly form smiled at her apologetically, sitting there with a leg crossed over the other. "You won't find me all the way there, you know? I am afraid this is all that's left of me, kid."

Star shook her head. She didn't know who to believe. There was something off about Glossaryck and Hekapoo. Something off since they started showing up around her. Something other than their obvious ghostlyness. The little magic man first came to her right after her chat with Eclipsa, while the sorceress showed up right after Marco first told her he had dreamed of her. Every time that it looked like there was a path to avenge her mother, another phantom appeared to tell Star how that could not possibly work, how her friends were all wrong, how she was wrong. She was beginning to distrust the ghosts.

"Yeah, Marco," she voted. "I am in."

It was still her best lead, by default, even if it was completely wrong. Besides, maybe she could ask this Sam about her mom's killer. Force him to tell her what he knew, if need be.

Hekapoo shrugged and shook her head.

\----

"Oookay," Jackie said, after Star finally deigned to give her two cents. "Then the second step is to look at the invitations. Right?"

"Already done," Tom said, holding up his own envelope, the only one addressed to one of them in particular, the one he got weeks ago, around the time of Star's Song Day. "There is not much here. Time: this Saturday night, which means we need to be there Friday night as per Janna's already famous deal. Fortunately, we can take the carriage for most of that journey, so a day will suffice. Place: Sam's palace inside the City of Dis. Costume mandatory at all times. Oh, and this..."

He passed them a black card with silver lettering. It had only two words in it: 'The Scoundrel'.

Jackie got it immediately, "That's the role you are going to play, right? Your masquerade costume?"

Tom nodded.

"How about the other four? How do we distribute those," asked Marco.

"I guess we just pick the closed envelope at random," shrugged Jackie. Seemed like the only fair way. "Then we keep whatever we got, unless someone wants to trade."

"Sounds good to me," Janna agreed, taking an envelope from the pile and passing the rest to Marco. She broke the seal. The cry of a tormented soul filled the air as she did, but the troublemaker girl paid it no mind. She grinned as she picked up her card and showed it to everyone: 'The Witch'

Marco took his envelope and passed the other two to Star first, walking all the way to were she was sitting, rather than handing them to the human girl directly to his side. Jackie noticed that, and it bothered her more than it probably should have. Another hellish cry and Marco was holding a card saying 'The Champion'.

Star took an envelope absentmindedly, put a finger through the wax, and the seal melted on its own. Jackie swore she could see a flash of green where Star finger had made contact with the flaming-sword sigil.

"'The Countess'?" the mewman spoke with only mild disappointment. She looked up at the ceiling again, silent for a second. She shrugged, "yeah, that's right, seems like a step down, but whatever."

Finally, Star noticed she still had the final closed envelope in her hands. She lifted a finger and the envelope floated all the way to where Jackie was sitting. The skateboarder girl took the envelope in her hands. She tried ripping apart the top, but the material wouldn't tear. An instant later she found that breaking the wax seal was indeed much easier. Another damned soul cried as he did.

She took the small black card from the inside, looked at the silvery letters and her expression fell. It read, in big bold script: 'The Slave'. She showed the others the card with some hesitation.

The Slave? They had all gotten some awesome role to play, and that was what she got? Jackie felt disappointed. Hell, she felt downright insulted! Janna had gotten 'witch', Star had gotten a nobility title, and Marco had gotten something related to physical combat. There was no way those were coincidences. Which meant the envelopes somehow predicted, or influenced, who chose which one. Which meant in turn that the damn card was either mocking her, or worse, judging her, disparaging her worth. It might as well have read 'The Second Fiddle', 'The Spare'.

"Eh, Jackie," Marco finally spoke. "We can switch if you want..."

Ok, he got brownie points for that one at least! But no, she had set the rules, and it was clear Marco didn't want her card either. Also, if she was right, then the role had somehow chosen her. Irritating as that idea was, it was probably better to play along. "Nah, dude, it's ok. You be the champion this time around. It's only fair."

They talked some more about the next part, and agreed to meet at Tom's next morning to start their journey, aiming to arrive at the gates of Dis by that same night; Friday night. All through their planning, Jackie paid little attention, her mind set on the card, and its implications.

\----

It felt strange, to be back in her room; her Earth room. Star had only been living back in Mewni for little over a week, preparing her mom's wake at first, then setting everything up to delegate the functions of government back to King River, and finally, studying Eclipsa's notes, preparing for the battle ahead. It felt like so much longer than a week.

Now she was ready to leave Mewni for a long while, and Earth too, to fulfill the promise she had made in front of her people, the pact she had made with Eclipsa. She scratched her left hand. Then, realizing she was alone, she closed her eyes and dipped down, undoing the silly glamour that concealed the black tendrils of the killing spell, that disguised her burned veins. It was such a relief to be rid of the illusion, to stop spending her magic and her focus on the color of her arms, to get rid of the itching sensation of having the corruption simmer beneath her skin, unseen. She hid that only for Marco's benefit, really, and the boy was not with her tonight.

Instead, he had offered to walk Jackie home. It was a gentleman move, and it made perfect sense, considering how crestfallen the other girl had seemed after she read her card. It was clear too, that there was some friction between the two human teens as well, some air that needed clearing. Same as between Marco and herself. Because, let's face it, there was yet another explanation for Marco offering to take Jackie to her place instead of staying in his own home: that he was avoiding Star.

She had sensed that the boy was uncomfortable around her ever since her mom died, and particularly of late, for understandable but still frustrating reasons. In fact, Star and Marco hadn't so much as kissed since St Olga's. Jackie and Marco hadn't had sex in that time either, the princess knew, although they had certainly been closer to it than she and Marco had. She could sense every time they started making out, just as well as when they stopped themselves short. She was trying to stop herself from feeling the link, but it was in vain. It was like trying to ignore the itching of her arms. She could pretend not to feel it, but she could not actually ignore the sensation.

Telling them that she knew of their troubles would only make it harder for them to feel comfortable again, however, and so Star didn't mention it. And Jackie didn't mention it to Star that she was still mad at her, because she thought that the princess had enough things to worry about. Which was, she noted, rather the truth. The problem was that, like the itching, the fact that none of them talked about why things were awkward all around didn't exactly meant they weren't awkward.

Besides, there was a lot of stuff going through Star's head these days: the burning rage, the suffocating emptiness, the nightmares, the ghosts, the ambivalent sensations of revulsion and pleasure she felt when casting the spells in Eclipsa's little book of dark magic. All of those things made it even harder for her to open up to her friends like before.

Yet, despite her own withdrawal, and the ways in which she had hurt them already, they had not abandoned her. If anything, they were even more determined to help her than ever. Marco hated the idea of her revenge mission, and yet had gone out of his way to find her a lead, however flimsy it might be. Tom had moved all his contacts, and he seemed to have Star's back unconditionally, in a way he never did back when they were dating. Janna seemed to hate Star now a days, and yet she was the one who had brokered a deal with this Sam person. They all, and Jackie too, were risking their lives in pursuit of Star's self-imposed quest.

"Yes, Star," spoke a familiar voice behind her, loving and compassionate, yet stern as well. "They are all willing to follow you, but that means you need to be wise in where you lead them; in how you lead. The same goes for the people of Mewni, you know? There are so many people who look up to you now. Is it worth putting them all in harm's way because of this?"

Star's eyes welled up with tears as she turned around, to see the one ghost that had not turned up before. The one who completed the pattern that had begun with Glossaryck and continued with Hekapoo. The one she wanted to see more than anything in all the worlds. And, sure enough, there she was, regally attired, translucently green, and so very very sad, "M... Mom?"

"Hi, sweetie."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Star sees dead people! Because she wasn't creepy enough last chapter!
> 
> Which leads us to...
> 
>  **Coming up next** : _Chapter 22: Baloo-balee, baloo-balow. I let you go, I let you go._
> 
> \----  
>  **To Shock_Cooling** : I did a double take when I saw your own "Hi, sweetie" scene in Shadows. Believe it or not, this chapter was 100% written (but not edited), before I saw that, as was the first scene of next chapter. I am writing these words together with my comment to the corresponding chapter of your fic, even though you won't see this for a few weeks. Here is hoping that the one we see here is the real Moon and not what yours turned out to be :)


	22. Baloo-balee, baloo-balow. I let you go, I let you go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Star and Moon have a chat, as do Jackie and Marco, and yet another familiar face visits Janna.

"I am so so sorry, sweetie," spoke Moon, her voice breaking. "So sorry, and so proud. You know? I lost my mom too, when I was not much older than you are now. So, what I am trying to say, Star, is that I understand, and that this is the last thing I ever wanted to do to you. Please, sweetie, forgive me."

"I... mom... I..." Star had no words, nothing to say. She had been thinking of things to say to her mom constantly for the past ten days, and now that she could finally speak to her, she had nothing. What could she say? That she missed her? That she felt lost? That it hurt? That she regretted never having been the daughter Moon would have wanted to have? That she took back every single time she had complained about her rules and her advice? That she would do it all differently now if she could? Even telling her mom of her plans, to find her killer, to avenge her... even that felt hollow.

Moon's phantasmal hand passed through Star's golden hairs. She could not feel her touch, not really, but she could imagine it and that was almost enough. "Sweetie, I know how hard this is, I really do. I will miss you more than anything, and I would have given everything for things to be different. But I am going to be fine where I am going. You need to be strong, and you are, stronger than I was, stronger than I could even conceive of back then. But you need to be strong for the sake of the living, not the dead."

"But... but... you are not dead, mommy! You are here!" Star lied to herself, more so than to her mom. Moon's translucent green visage looked at her helplessly, as if about to break down crying herself. A fresh pang of guilt hit the princess. Even in death, she caused her mother nothing but grief. "I... I am sorry... I know..."

"Then you also know that what you are doing is not what I want for you," the teal phantasm stated calmly. As gentle as the reprimand was, as kind as her rebuke was phrased, the princess felt her strength break. Tears begun flowing down Star's eyes. Yes, even now, she was a disappointment. "Star, please. I am not trying to hurt you. I just don't want you to put yourself in danger, to put your friends in danger. Not for my sake!"

"But mom, what if it comes back?" Star's voice was quieter than a mouse's whisper. "It... it defeated you, Hekapoo too, I... I am scared, but isn't protecting Mewni also my duty now?"

"Yes, Star, it is. That's why you need to stay back home with your people, and guard them, and guide them, and reassure them, as their queen," her mom insisted. "Again, Star, I am so sorry. I would not have you inherit that burden if I could still carry it for you. I know you don't want it. I didn't either. No one who deserves it can ever want it. But you are right, your duty is to the people of Mewni, as was mine before, and my mother's before me..."

"I can't, mom, not even if I wanted," replied Star regretfully. She had been feeling the weight of her decision even since the wake, and now she had confirmation that it had been the wrong one. But even so, it was done, "I promised Eclipsa. I made a deal! I... I don't think I can be queen now, even if I tried, not until, well, until I do what I said I would do..."

"Oh sweetie, how I wish you hadn't done that," Moon shook her head. "Eclipsa... she was my mistake, you shouldn't have to be the one to deal with her. But that's all the more reason not to leave Mewni, Star. You cannot leave her alone there! You need to inform the high commission... what is left of it! Eclipsa is evil, Star!"

She hadn't seemed evil. Nothing Star had heard about her, before or since, pointed at her being evil either, and she had researched the records on the matter thoroughly after their encounter. As thoroughly as Star could, under the circumstances. But nonetheless, she couldn't be sure, and this seemed like the worst possible time to start yet another argument with her mom. Nothing, no principle and no point of disagreement, was worth that now. The princess opted for saying nothing.

"Or," the former queen continued. "If you don't want to go back to Mewni... if you really can't be queen... Then how about staying here, sweetie? With that Marco boy you like, and your other friend as well? You always told me how much you liked Earth. Perhaps you can stay a little while, until you are ready for Mewni again. All I want, Star, is for you to be happy."

That did it. That broke the illusion. Star stopped crying, stopped shaking. She fixed Moon's ghost with a murderous glare, her hand tensing around the wand. Black tendrils tightened around her arms, climbing further and further up through the inside of her veins, towards her shoulders. "You are not my mom!"

Moon would never have told Star to run away from her responsibilities. She would have wanted her daughter to be happy, and safe, that much was true. But she would never advice her to desert Mewni, to abandon her people. The thought wouldn't even have occurred to her mother, not even as a remote possibility! Glossaryk had been off, but then again Glossaryk was always off. And Hekapoo had sounded strange, but it wasn't as if Star knew her well enough to tell for certain. But her mom? She knew her mom. This thing was not her mom!

"No, I am not. But, next time we meet, remember this, Star. Remember that I tried to do this the easy way," answered a deep voice, a male voice coming from the apparition that had so far pretended to be her mother. Not-Moon was now giving Star a scornful glare, flashing her a mocking smirk. 

It was then that the princess noticed the teeth. They were sharp and feral, and not mewman at all. Before her eyes, her mom's image began to change: fingers merging together, scales replacing her hair, ribcage broadening to the sides, a monstrous snout expanding forward from her mouth. Her royal dress also shifted and reshaped itself, into a somber suit and tie.

Toffee's face flashed the princess an incredibly disturbing grin. "SURPRISE!!"

Then, cackling madly, he vanished into an explosion of ghostly green smoke. 

Try as she might, alone in her Earth room, Star was not able to sleep that night. 

\----

"Jackie, listen, are you alright?" asked her boyfriend cautiously. They were half-way towards her place now. It was late night, and even in Echo Creek, California, it was starting to get chilly outside.

"Sure, dude, no worries," she reassured him with a smile. "How about you, though?"

She could tell Marco was worried, about Star, about their plan, and about something else. Maybe about his dream? She felt he hadn't told her all about it yet, that he remembered more of those sixteen years than what he claimed, and that whatever was buried in those memories was harsh stuff.

"I... I am not fine, none of us are," Marco shook his head. "But that's the point, Jackie. It was a rhetorical question. I can tell you are worried too, you know? Can you at least tell me why? Is it about this morning? Or about the invitation thing? The spell? Something else?"

"Seriously, no biggie, Marco," Jackie shrugged. 

It truly wasn't. Star had just lost her mom. Marco had lost, well, whatever Hekapoo was to him, and in addition had to deal with the fact that there was this whole forgotten past catching up to him now. Compared to that, what did she have to worry about? A dumb role written in a card and some childish teenage insecurities? It would have been ridiculous to even bring those up to him now.

"Jackie..." Marco begun. Then he fell silent. They walked a few more steps until, "You can talk to me, too, you know? I feel that you are always there when I need to figure something out, and I know that you were there for Star too, back when we all started going out together. But you never talk about your own problems..."

"Well, Marco, I don't have that many," she smiled. "I am pretty lucky, honestly. The stuff I worry about, well, it's just nonsense..."

"Jackie, if that were true, then you would have told me," he smiled at her. It was a cute smile, that alone was more than enough for her. "We have had plenty of time to talk nonsense. But, if it worries you, then it isn't nonsense, not to me."

"You are worried about Star, Marco," Jackie stated. "I know you are. I am too. Worried that she is in pain. Worried that she will do something rash. I understand that she is in your mind a lot, and is not like that's the only thing in your mind now..."

"Jackie... I..." he started talking. Jackie held a hand up, silencing him. 

"Marco, please, let me finish." If she didn't say it now, she might not be able to do so later. "This morning you came to leave me behind so that you could be there for Star. I get why. Hell, Marco, I even admire you for it, for being there for those you love, when the going gets truly tough, when few would blame you for staying behind. It is part of what I love about you. But I'd be lying to you, and lying to myself, if I said it didn't hurt to know for certain who you'd pick, if you really had to..." 

She looked down, frustrated. Frustrated that it mattered this much, that she was laying it on him. There were real threats they had to face now, life or death stuff. There was a prophecy and a devil playing games and who knows what else. They had bigger problems than her wounded ego.

"Jackie, that's not it!" the boy protested. "I love you, Jackie. I have loved you since we were little kids. Yes, I like Star too, but is not like she is more important to me than you are. It's only, well, she really needs me now. You would be fine without me. Hell, you might be better off without the kind of boyfriend that drags you into all this chaos, all this danger! But Star really needs... a friend. She needs someone by her side now, unconditionally."

"You are right, Marco, of course," agreed Jackie. And yet, at the same time... "But, if it wasn't just Star? If we both needed someone? I am not saying I do. I don't. But if we both needed you the same, and both loved you the same, can you tell me you would not still choose her?"

"No, Jackie, I... I wouldn't," he tried. His eyes avoiding her own.

"Marco, can I ask you a favor?"

"Anything."

"Don't lie to me," she said, flashing him a bittersweet smile made of fondness and fragility. "I don't think I deserve that."

Marco stared at her. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. She could tell that he cared, that he wanted to reassure her and, at the same time, that he was honoring her request.

"I love you, Jackie," he whispered tenderly. "That's not a lie."

She nodded. A gust of air swirled around them, and she shivered. Marco took off his hoodie and handed it to her.

"Jackie..." he seemed to be trying hard to find the right words. "I don't have to choose. Do I?"

"No, Marco, you don't," she replied. Slowly, she took his hoodie and slid it down her head, arms and torso. It felt warm, and soft. It smelled nice.

"I am glad," he remarked.

"Yeah..." she replied, "me too."

\----

'Witch' had read her invitation, and Janna was pleased. It had felt like encouragement, like reaffirmation. It would be her role to play at Sam's mysterious costume party and, at the same time, it felt like more than a role, more than make pretend. Witch was what she truly was, what she was becoming. At least she hoped it was so. So what if she couldn't quite match Star? She could do things now, see things, understand things, that a month ago were literally beyond her comprehension. And yet, it did matter, despite her protests. It did matter that she was so far below Tom, below Star, below Sam.

She sat on the lotus position in the middle of Tom's room, floating in the air by her own power. Well, that was a lie, the power came from the damned souls and the demons that inhabited Tom's underworld. It was a huge tapestry made of bits and scraps of power which she had siphoned around herself to turn the air into an invisible hand, capable of holding her in its palm. It felt like her own power though, at this point, sometimes. But it was never good to forget where her magics came from, where she could look towards to gain even more power. In front of her was the black envelope, empty now of its treacherous invitation.

She had spent half of that night staring at the dark material, feeling it with her new senses. Now it was well past three, and she was nowhere nearer to her goal than she had been when she started. She could sense Sam's energies in the envelope, as well as something else, something dark and slow flowing below the devil boy's hellfire. But she could not draw from it. She could not get the magics that made the envelope to bend or reweave, to transform on her command. Try as she might, the black paper envelope remained indifferent to her will, more solid than stone, more real than reality itself.

Exasperated, Janna lifted a hand. A ball of blue flames sprouted between her fingers in an instant. At least she had gotten better at that since a week ago. She threw the fireball directly at the paper sleeve. It hit the dark envelope and blazed around it for a full minute before fading out. But when the embers died, the black paper was unscratched and, she confirmed, cold to the touch.

"Yes, I wouldn't have expected that to work, either," spoke a low composed voice behind Janna, coming from the wall opposite to the door. It wasn't Tom's voice. 

Startled, the troublemaker girl turned around to face the intruder. Her levitation failed her, but she landed on her feet. She came face to face with a transparent glaucous apparition of a half-lizard man in a business suit and tie. It regarded her with a look of detached curiosity, making no movement towards her. Janna had heard enough from Star's stories, and read enough of Marco's private journal, to know who this was, even if the ghostly appearance was unexpected: Toffee.

She knew he was dangerous, knew it well enough to beginning drawing in power the moment she realized who she was seeing. Lightning crackled between her fingers. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I am afraid I have come to kill you," the lizard monster responded, equably. "Sorry, nothing personal, but Star has left me no choice. If she won't be convinced not to embark on this foolish path, then I must make sure the way itself is closed."

Perhaps it was true that Janna did not always show the best judgment. But, to her credit, she understood that when a smooth sociopath threatened you with murder, no matter how calmly, you didn't exactly waste time asking why. You either fled, or you cried for help, or you fought back. The apprentice witch did all three. It was an instinct acquired from the harshness of experience, even if her conscious mind did not remember the lesson. Even if she had forgotten Princess White. 

"Tom, help!!!" she yelled, and in the same breath she was raising her hands to attack. 

Lightning flowed from her fingertips. It crashed through and around Toffee's non-substance, harmlessly. The Lizard looked at her with bemusement, and with contempt. Janna turned around to run, but a flash of green fire passed her by on the side; suddenly the stairs going down into Tom's room were engulfed in blazes.

Terrified, she turned back towards Toffee, who walked slowly towards her. In desperation, she conjured two blue fireballs of her own and launched them at the specter, with predictable results. The ghost glided through the fire, unscathed.

"My turn," he spoke coldly, and pointed at Janna with a single finger of his right claw. 

A stream of green flames flowed from the limb, moving fast towards her, too fast to dodge, too fast to think. She could feel the magic in that emerald fire. It was a magic that felt like Star's own, yet turned inside out into a profoundly wrong way. On reflex, without thinking, Janna casted a weak levitation spell. She pulled the black envelope which had contained Sam's party invitation and magically pulled it between herself and the viridescent torrent of deadly combustion. Toffee's attack forked in two as it made contact with the dark object. Janna was glad her guess about the envelope's indestructibility had proven right. The bifurcated streams hit opposite sides of Tom's room, blowing twin holes into the thick rock walls. Quickly, Janna scurried into one of the holes, and began running through the hallway parallel to the demon prince's chambers. 

She had to flee, to hide, to find help.

"Tom!!" she cried. "Damn it, Tom! Help! Wrathmelior! Sam! Anyone! Please!"

Star. Toffee's magic had felt like Star's. Well, like Star's magic if it had been taken through a blender of evil, but still, it had a strong similarity with the mewman's power. Janna took out her phone, without ever stopping running. She loaded her contact list, saw Star's entry there, still near the top. For a moment, her finger hovered over the call button. She felt an overwhelming irritation, a retching feeling of revulsion, a torrent of humiliation and guilt. It was a visceral sentiment, reinforced into the core of her being by a malignant power. But even so, it wasn't enough to override her instinct for self-preservation. The phone rang. Once. Twice.

"Janna?!" she heard the shocked surprise of the princess on the other end.

"This is getting tiresome," remarked Toffee as he appeared right in front of the young witch. Evidently, there was little point in running away from someone who could just teleport himself into the back of a closed room, or go through walls, or whatever it was that the phantasm had done to get inside Tom's bedroom.

A claw caught Janna's arm. It felt surprisingly solid. With the back of his remaining hand, Toffee threw the girl's cellphone against the wall, before she could even say a word. It broke on impact. Smiling, the monster lifted that same hand to place it right in front of her face, and pointed an outstretched finger at her. Green flames began building up around the ghost's arm. She closed her eyes.

"Grraaaarggh!!" she heard a roaring cry of rage and madness, a familiar voice. 

Janna opened her eyes to see the lizard's ghost flying through the air, Tom's hands around its neck, holding into the immaterial apparition with ease. Whether it was because Toffee had made himself corporeal to grab her, or because Tom, being a demon, could touch ghosts as a matter of course, he didn't seem to have any problem strangling the specter. The demon prince's eyes glowed bright red. All around the pair, a storm of green and crimson blazes devoured one another, vying for supremacy.

The young Lucitor began speaking a long incantation in a strange guttural tongue. Around him and the immortal monster, an array of stone pillars sprouted from the earth, tearing through the palace's carpet and walls. Symbols glowed in bright scarlet script unto the rocks. Janna felt a confluence of terrible energies gathering around the two combatants...

"Enough!" Toffee shouted. He hit Tom with the back of his arm, throwing him flying into the air, past Janna herself. The stones that had begun to form exploded into emerald dust. "Since you insist on getting in the way, demon child, I will remove you as well. In the end, you are both equally inconsequential!"

Toffee advanced towards the two teens, his serene expression now gone, a glare of fury and maddened determination replacing it.

"IRRADIATED SHRAPNEL DEATH BLIZZARD BLAST!!" shouted yet another familiar voice from behind the troublemaker girl. A storm of emerald glass-like magic shards came flying fast right behind those words, blowing the lizard back into the opposite wall. 

Janna turned around to see Star, followed by Marco and Jackie, as they all emerged from Tom's hearse-like carriage. The princess' face held a glare of fury and determination of her very own.

\----

He had once held Marco prisoner, forced her to break the wand. He had impersonated her mom. He had gone after her friends, yet again. He would pay. Toffee would regret the day he crossed paths with Star Butterfly. If he was a ghost, she would find a way to send him beyond the veil. And if he wasn't, he soon would be!

"DEVOURING HORRORS HELL SWARM!!" she cried out. Flowing tentacles of undiluted black ichor jumped from the shadows, all around the lizard monster, a thousand eyes and mouths opening towards her victim. They began to bite, to rend, to feast.

Star felt a strange sensation after casting each spell on Toffee. As if a part of her magic was rebounding back onto her. She had felt the impacts against her magic shield when she cast the irradiated shrapnel blast, and now she could feel the scratches in her skin. But those were weak echoes, muted somehow, either by their very nature, or because of the many layers of magical defenses Star had weaved upon herself. Either way, this was not a sensation she had expected. She had never felt this type of feedback when practicing her new spells before.

In truth, both attacks were only a slight deviation from her usual spell repertoire, based on the same basic principles as a Warnicorn Stampede or a Narwhal Blast. Same principles, that is, but a different application, predicated upon different intent. It was what her spells could do, what her summons could be, when cast not with the intent to subdue or even to simply win, but with the desire to kill, to hurt, to destroy her foes down to their very core. A less childish spell, for far less childish purposes.

Yet it still wasn't enough. She could already see Toffee's ghost recovering from the assault, getting ready to counter-attack. She would not give him such opportunity. Screw taking those risks, and screw playing fair. 

"From darkness deep and fires far, I call on time to flow like tar," she intoned. All around her, the flames paused their ceaseless dance, freezing in place. Time slowed down to a crawl. She calmly walked amidst a world nearly, but not entirely, stopped.

It wasn't the same spell she had used during Jackie's duel with Princess White. The enchantment back then had been 'Cozy flowsy, time slowsy', if she remembered correctly. But this was a variation on that spell, reconstructed under the principles of Eclipsa's notes. It had been Star's second attempt at crafting true dark magic of her own. Time was a fragile thing, after all, and, in a way, this kind of magic offered a much improved degree of control than her past attempts; a more intimate understanding of the natural order she was subverting. As for her first attempt at a dark spell...

"Seething poison, burning bright, I draw you forth with all my might," she begun, taking aim. It was not worth using Eclipsa's original spell just yet, not when she had the perfect opportunity to try the finished version of her earliest dark spell. It was the same blast she had used once on Tom by accident, drawing from her anger after she couldn't deal with Marco and Jackie at the Love Sentence concert. That had been but a cute baby temper tantrum compared to the ire she felt towards Toffee now. "To cinder burn all in your path... unleashed storm of righteous wrath!!"

The frozen green and red flames shattered into nothing as a maelstrom of pure black bile sprouted from Star's wand, a bright green lance of light at its core. It wasn't quite the death spell, the darkest spell of Moon the Undaunted, but it would be enough. Toffee would find his final end, frozen in time, pierced by her well-deserved fury, as he should have since they first met. Star actually smiled. It felt surprisingly like the right thing to do.

The spell impacted its target and a blinding flash dissolved the world around the mewman. When the princess finally adjusted to the brightness, she saw movement on the other end of a huge curtain of smoke. Impossible. Truly and absolutely impossible. Toffee could not have survived that attack, even if he had managed to resist the original barrage. Granting even that he still existed, how could he walk towards her, when time itself had slowed to one millionth of its usual speed? Impossible! And yet, it was so.

"Are you done?" the lizard asked, in a chillingly unperturbed voice.

The shock was big enough that she failed to maintain the time spell, and the rest of the world around them resumed moving as well. Walls crumbled under impacts that had already happened but that the stone itself was just now feeling. Decorations burned under flames that had long passed them by. Her ears thundered with the sonic boom of her earlier spell. All the while, Star felt herself confused and lost. Nothing should have been able to move back there, except for herself and her spells.

"You..." The princess tried to compose her thoughts, unsuccessfully. Realization slowly swept in, through her anger and surprise. "You can't be Toffee either. You just can't be. Who... What are you?!"

Before her eyes, Toffee's ghost dissolved. Instead of him, there was now Glossaryck's phantasm, regarding her with disappointment.

"Well, you know, I sort of thought you might have figured it out by now. I am..."

It changed form. Glossaryck was gone. In its place stood Hekapoo.

"Fierce,"

Another switch, and Moon stood again in front of Star. A heartbreaking mirage.

"Undaunted,"

The next instant it was Toffee once more, grinning cruelly.

"Relentless,"

It kept that form then, but the voice changed. It became a female voice, one that spoke like a chorus of many voices, all beautiful and all terrifying.

"I am will, unbending."

Star shivered. Her eyes opened wide. She remembered what her dad had said, about the night her mom died. The creature that had done it had said something very similar back then. 'I am love, all-conquering'. And Star knew, she knew it was the same being. She knew her journey was at an end before it ever started. Beyond terror, beyond anger, beyond shock, she raised her wand and aimed true, straight for the heart. Just like she had practiced.

"I call the darkness unto me, from deepest depths of earth and sea, from ancient evils unawoken, to break the one who can't be broken," she recited, as fast as she could. "To blackest night I pledge my soul, and crush my heart to burning coal, to summon forth the deathly power, to-see-my-hated-foe..."

"Sweetie? What are you doing?" spoke Moon, just as the princess prepared to say the last word of the death spell.

Star knew it was fake. She knew the creature she was seeing was not her mom. That it was the thing that killed her. It should have incensed her rage to see such a cowardly display, such a crude deception. It should have multiplied her hate for this thing a thousandfold. And it did. And yet, she couldn't do it. She was unable to complete the spell. Her hand veered to the side, and the thin ray of perfect blackness hit the stone instead, drilling a hole through it.

A blast of green flames hit Star in retaliation. Her shields shattered and her body flew backwards, thrown aside like a discarded rag doll.

\----

It took Jackie a shamefully long time to catch up with what had just happened, to even begin opening the zipper of her duffel bag. A mere hour ago, she would have called her own duel with Princess White intense. It had been child's play by comparison. Star had unleashed levels of ass-kicking on the green phantasm that the skateboarder girl wouldn't have believed possible, had she not seen her in action. Yet, not five minutes after they arrived, the princess laid on the floor, surrounded by emerald flames, unconscious.

The human girl pulled out her sword from the bag, and steeled herself for one brave - and foolish - act of defiance. It was no flimsy fencing foil she had packed for the journey, but a real blade. As real as she could find. Forged by some medieval weapons enthusiast back in L.A. It was truly sharp as well, not a dull thing made to exhibit as decoration, she had tested it. She had made sure to procure such a weapon as soon as they returned from St O's. It had cost her many months of her own savings.

Even so, it was a far cry from the enchanted golden sword she had used in her duel with the vampire princess. She herself was not nearly as strong, not as quick, as she had been under the influence of Star's magics. Without the added power, the girl could barely hold up the blade. She had no hope of fighting off this foe, this abomination that wore the face of Queen Moon. But she had to do something. Star and Tom were out cold, Janna was in a panic, and Marco was just as weak as she was, when it came right down to it. Perhaps, if only she could hold off their enemy for a few seconds, not much more than an instant, it might be enough for the mewman girl to regain consciousness, or for the rest of them to run away.

"Aaa-yaaa!" Jackie Lynn Thomas charged, sword in hand, channeling as much of 'Prince Jack' as she could muster.

"Oh, for corn's sake," spoke the thing that wasn't Star's mom. A green spectral blade appeared in its hand, and it moved to effortlessly parry the human girl's strike.

The true blade, the one forged from hard steel, broke in two as it made contact with the edge of the ghostly weapon. A shower of sparks flowed around Jackie's hair. The hilt heated to a burning red, and she was forced to let go, yelping in pain. The emerald apparition fixed her a look of utter contempt, as it kicked her in the stomach.

Jackie knew then that, if it had wanted, her opponent would have easily punched a hole through her abdomen with its leg. As it was, it pushed her back and onto the ground, knocking out all of the air inside her. She opened her mouth to yell. She vomited instead. She hadn't bought them a single second.

Out of the corner of her eye, the girl saw Marco glance briefly at her. Was his look one of concern? Or was it pity? Either way, her boyfriend's eyes didn't linger. He turned his back towards her, and began walking towards the many-faced monstrosity. All of Jackie's pain faded away, overwhelmed by the terror that he might try to fight the creature too... and die.

\----

As he approached the creature, Moon's visage faded away. Instead, it was Hekapoo's face which now regarded Marco with a dismissive smirk. "What is it, kiddo? You want to fight me too? Because you are even dumber than I thought if you really think you have a chance."

'Give me sixteen years', thought Marco. 'Sixteen years and then let's see who doesn't have a chance'. But he knew the apparition was right. His body was weak, the only ritual he could remember was useless in combat, and even if it had been possible for him to fight now like he could at the end of Hekapoo's scissor quest... Well, even then, this wasn't Hekapoo. It was the thing that had managed to do her in.

"So, here is what I don't understand," he tried to buy time. Pretending a confidence that he had only really felt in dreams. "You are supposed to be trapped, no? Sealed away. What happened with that? And, if you are here, then where is Hekapoo?!"

'A ritual of sealing, for a power greater than myself,' had said the sorceress in his dream. Then how come this creature, whatever it was, walked free? It didn't work that way. It couldn't work that way. Every ritual had a price, but what you bought with it also had to be of fair value. There was no way, no way at all, for Hekapoo's sacrifice to have been in vain. Marco didn't care how great a power they were talking about, nothing could walk free mere days after a trade like that!

"I am dead, muscles," she mocked him. "Gone. Undone. Laid low. Turned to dust. But it is true I did seal away most of it. Most of me."

The voice had started as Hekapoo's, but turned into a chorus of different voices for just the last three words. When the ghost spoke once more, after that, it used the voice of the forger of scissors again.

"'Every echo I send out, allows it one of its own, of proportional magnitude,'" she quoted the real Hekapoo. Her tone was ice cold, her manner smug and sardonic. "An aspect for an aspect, kid. A dream... for a nightmare."

With that last utterance, two pairs of dimensional scissors appeared in the specter's hands. With a swift movement, she raced past Marco's slow form, and opened a portal right behind him. 

"You are lucky I don't want to kill the three of you, kid," spoke the false Hekapoo as she pushed the human boy through the dimensional gateway. "Honestly, you all should be thanking me."

Marco saw the world in front of him fade as he made it through the swirling opening. He didn't know what place laid at the other end, but it didn't matter, it was not where he had to be. It was taking it away from his friends, who needed him, away from Star. Then, a second later, he saw the scene return, as a force yanked him out of the portal. The pull sent him sprawling out into the floor of Tom's castle. He looked up to see Janna's outstretched hand, glowing blue, far away from him.

"Ooops, Marco, sorry for the landing," she smiled, clearly not all that sorry. "Guess I am still new at this stuff."

That was an understatement. Since when could Janna levitate him?

"I am afraid you will not live to turn pro," spoke Toffee, as the ghostly being switched masks once more. "You see, unlike those two, I really do not mind ending you, girl. So let's finish what I came here to do. Shall we?"

\----

"No," spoke Tom dangerously. Anger didn't begin to describe the fire that burned inside of him now. This thing had hurt Star, had intruded into his home, had wounded him, and now, it was threatening the human girl again. "No, we shall not."

Eyes glowed like blazing calderas. Flames and lightning danced all around him. Through harsh pain and numbing fear, the Lucitor prince rose up a second time. He flew up high into the air, and the entirety of the underworld under his domain became quiet as his fundamental void begun calling all of demonkind to his aid.

"Am I supposed to be scared?" retorted Toffee, unimpressed.

"Oh, terrified," assured him Tom in a grave guttural voice. He began chanting in the ancient tongue, summoning all the damned under his rule, beseeching demons and dead souls.

He could see, in Janna's face, that she was the first to perceive it for what it was, to understand the energies he was gathering. She looked impressed, awed, and more than a bit jealous. Oh, for fuck sake! He was saving her life, she better deal with the fact he could do things she couldn't.

The green phantasm lifted a claw towards him, a blur of flames shimmering right under the surface. In an instant, a sturdy metal chain came spilling out of the ground and grabbed the offending appendage. Then came another, and another after that. Fetters and shackles of iron black as night closed themselves around the monster. It trashed and burned, it assaulted the restrains with unearthly power, and yet they held. A circle of red flames began drawing itself around the intruder's form, broken by twelve equidistant spikes. Arus'Morgáth, the sigil of domain.

Marco gasped. Jackie looked up, still too shocked, and perhaps too much in pain, to speak. They both beheld what the demon prince knew were the full limits of his power. He would have to rub this one on Marco's face later. But for now, he needed to remain focused.

"You should be afraid," Tom repeated, "because I am Tom Lucitor, son of Wrathmelior Lucitor, descendant of Iblis Lucitor the Elder, and heir of their line. You should be afraid, because you are in the underworld under my rule, on the domain left to me by my ancestors, and given to them by The Morning Star Himself!"

He had never done this before, never needed to. This thing, whatever it was, was more powerful than him, more powerful than even Star. Yet, within his domain, Tom could call unto powers far beyond his own, he could bend the entirety of this place to his call. Every demon and every spirit, of the underworld of Mewni and Earth and a dozen more dimensions, ultimately answered to him. The creature before them was weakened, merely an echo of whatever it used to be. It had admitted that much to Marco. There was no way that it would be able to stand, on its own, against literally all the powers of hell! Of his hell, at least.

"By right of domain, by ancient pacts and even older laws, I order you to withdraw from my lands!" he shouted. "Or else be cast to the flame beneath the flame!"

A crimson glow began flowing through the huge dark chains. The twelve pointed circle shone blinding in mid air around the emerald phantom, as a whirlpool of invisible demonic spirits began bearing down on it. Lightning and flame assaulted the translucent monstrosity in lizard form. It grunted in pain and frustration.

"Enough!" Toffee shouted. "Fine. You've made your point. I acquiesce to withdraw."

Just like that, the forces of the underworld ceased their attack, and Tom could not have forced them to continue if he tried to. Whatever this being was, it knew the rules at least as well as Tom himself did. He had told it to go away, and if it did, of its own free will, then the demon prince had no authority to deny that. Not under the right of domain. He could use his own personal magics to try and harm the creature, of course, but that did not seem wise.

"But hear me out, as I depart, all of you," Toffee spoke, keeping the voice, if perhaps not the persona. "If you stay down here, you are safe from me. If you go back to Earth or to Mewni, if you desist from seeking me out, then I promise I'll leave you in peace there as well. But if you persist on this course, then we will meet again, and it will be far away from your domain, young Lucitor. Remember as well, that this is not nearly the fullness of my power. Star, Marco, Jackie, I truly do not desire your deaths. They would inconvenience me. But make no mistake, I'll accept them, if given no choice. Goodbye."

With a thunderous boom and an explosion of green flames, the emerald ghost vanished.

Tom felt the last bit of strength drain away from him. He had never done this before. Never commanded all of the hell under his domain at once. Even his mother did so rarely. It had taken his all to retain control until now. He fell to the ground from meters up in the air, his own flames extinguished for a time. He fell into the arms of a recently awoken Star Butterfly.

"Tom, that was..." the princess spoke. He could barely hear her, his consciousness fading. It was not death, nothing like that, only exhaustion. He smiled at her.

"I am so glad you are alright, Starship," he whispered as his eyes closed, right before everything around him turned to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As dark as this chapter may have been, I should point out this is the first time our villain makes an appearance and there is **not** a body count. Of course, it is not the original form of our villain either, though.
> 
> For those wondering if this version of ghost!Toffee was the plan all along, I invite you to look at Chapter 17, First Comment, Secret #3, Password: gentlemenitsbeenapleasure ;)
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 23: I Call the Darkness Unto Me_
> 
>  **Delay note:** Chapter 23 and those that follow are going to take a bit more than three weeks, unfortunately, due to various non-AO3 reasons. With any luck, Chapter 23 itself should be out before Feb. In the meantime, here is another story I have been working on with an epic surprise co-author of some renown (but this story is neither the reason for the delay, nor does it mean I have stopped writing IStASE, fear not, those few that have made it to here!): [Squire of the Wash](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13398504)


	23. I Call the Darkness Unto Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In we get conversations between mismatched pairs, costumes are worn, and we begin our descent into hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All warnings, tags, and disclaimers, apply in full force for this and the following three chapters. If things so far in IStASE have made you uncomfortable, this is where you might wish to step out of this ride.
> 
> With that said... we are off to see the wizard, the magical wizard from hell...

Tom woke up to what many would consider the best possible thing after an ordeal like that: the sight of a pretty girl. Except it wasn't the one he had expected. Nor was she the one he had hoped for, either. He blinked, confused. His head ached way too much for him to quite process what he was seeing.

"Hey," Jackie greeted the waking demon. "How you feeling, dude?"

"I am..." he began. In tremendous pain, was how he was. But instead of saying so, he simply asked, "...where am I?"

She needed not answer. As he looked around, he realized he was sleeping on a familiar couch, in the back of his own personal carriage. He could feel the gentle vibrations that indicated they were in motion. The undead horse galloping through the dimensions fast as a comet and delicate as a gliding shadow.

"We are on our way already. We've been traveling for a while, actually. Janna said we would not make it in time unless we took off this morning," Jackie explained.

Tom sighed. Of course. He had been the one who spent the entire evening yesterday reminding the witch that they could not afford to be late to their meeting with Sam, and that it meant departing early that next morning, no matter what happened. Wait, that morning? It had been middle of the night when he fought the abomination, which meant... "What time is it now? How long was I out?!"

Jackie looked at her phone. "Well, I am not sure how timezones work in hell, but on Earth, it would be 4pm, west-coast time. You have been out slightly over twelve hours, man."

Twelve hours?! His eyes glowed red with fury at the realization. He tried to feel the environment around them, the hell within his domain. He failed. They were already past the threshold, far outside his lands. He couldn't protect them here if the monstrosity showed up again. He flared up in anger and fear. "No! We need to go back! Turn us back this instant, girl!"

Jackie leaned back, ever so slightly, as flames burst out around Tom's prone form. But after the momentary surprise passed, she simply looked at him and gently shook her head, "We are almost there already, Tom. Anyways, I don't see us turning back. Star won't have it, and where she goes, I guess we go..."

Almost there? He closed his eyes, and felt it. It permeated the air around them, the earth beneath them, the firmament high above: Sam's power. They were already within his lands, already well inside the confines of his own domain. Tom calmed down ever so slightly. Sam had promised his protection, conditional as it was. While in his realm, nothing else would have them for prey, not even the creature from last night. It was the devil you knew. Literally.

It occurred to Tom now, that he had never interacted much with Marco's human girlfriend. Sure, he had argued with her, or rather at her, back in St O's. But that had been brief. Star was missing then, and he had to find her, to undo the human teens' stupidity. He had mostly dealt with Marco then, not the girl. But here she was, this Jackie kid, calmly telling him no, even as he had blazed fury, even after what she had just seen him do.

"You are not afraid of me?" Tom asked, surprised.

"Well, Marco isn't, and Star isn't, and I don't think Janna is, either," she reasoned, shrugging as she counted with her fingers. "Whatever eye-glow exploding thing you have going on, dude, you seem to have it under control when it really counts. So, as long as I know you don't actually want to hurt me..."

She looked pensive for a moment. She stared down, avoiding his eyes, all three of them.

"Besides, I think I have proved I don't have enough good sense in me to be afraid, even when I should be," she spoke dejectedly. Suddenly, she seemed a lot less self-assured than she had so far.

Tom was confused. Then he remembered her charging at the fiery apparition, which had taken the form of none less than Moon the Undaunted, while brandishing some flimsy Earth-sword. That had taken balls, he had to admit. He chuckled at the irony.

"Well," he smiled, finally, "you are in good company. You humans all seem to have a death wish."

He laughed, in a way he hoped was just perhaps a smidgen more friendly than it was derisive.

"Hey! You are one to talk!" she chided him, and punched him playfully in the arm. "What you did was badass, dude. I won't say it wasn't. But when you fell down, at the end... we all thought... I mean, I think even Star was scared. She looked like she was about to cry..."

Tom blinked. Star? Star had been about to cry? Over him? No way! Jackie must be making it up. Or maybe misinterpreting the mewman somehow. It had barely gotten to the point where she tolerated him, after all. And given everything he had done to her in the past, even that much was nearly a miracle. Besides, if she truly cared, she would be here now, wouldn't she?

"By the way, where is Star?" he asked. "Or Janna? Or Marco? Why are you here, of all people?"

That came out a lot more rude than he had intended. Fortunately for him, Jackie seemingly took no offense.

"Janna and Marco are driving. Apparently he is the only one of us with any experience taking this thing for a ride, and Janna is the only one of us who can read a map of hell," she explained. "Star is busy brooding up there."

She pointed at the ceiling above them.

"Star... brooding?" he repeated dumbly. It is not like he didn't know what the princess was going through, or how much it had affected her. Hell, he had seen the hurt and fury in her eyes last night as she fought, however briefly. Still, knowing Star as long as he did, the thought of her sulking simply did not fit his picture of the mewman princess. If anything, it was he that used to do that, even back when they were dating and he had few excuses for unhappiness.

"I don't think she wants to be with anyone right now. She got into another spat with Janna and has been sitting on the roof ever since," Jackie continued, paying no mind to his confusion. "As for why me? Well, your girlfriend wanted someone to keep watch over you, and she asked me to do it."

"My girlfriend?" he asked. Then it clicked. "Janna is not..."

Jackie raised an eyebrow. Tom stopped mid-sentence.

"I don't know what we are, ok?!" he spat, irritably.

"Fair enough, dude," Jackie shrugged. "... just make sure she doesn't know either. Anyways, we should probably tell them that you are back in the land of the living."

Tom sensed the endless currents of dead souls that flowed through the vastness of Sam's domain. 'The land of the living'? It was anything but.

"Sure," he answered, getting up.

\----

Guiding Tom's hearse through the depths of the underworld was certainly a unique experience. It was not at all like riding it from one dimension to another, where the entire ride seemed as if the horse and carriage were gliding through an infinite sea of flame, with no geography of its own. It was also not like riding it on Earth, where its slow movement seemed almost mundane by comparison. Down here, the scene around them moved way too fast for how a normal horse would gallop. Yet, Marco, holding the reins through the coach's front window, didn't feel the flow of air against his face that their velocity would imply, nor the bumpiness of the harsh rock terrain below them. Hell, Star was sitting atop the damn thing now, and apparently she had no complaints, at least none about their movement.

"So, what's going on between you and Star?" he ventured asking to the girl besides him.

"What's going on between _you_ and Star?" Janna echoed the question back to him. Without looking away from the scene above them.

It was majestic, in a horrifying sort of way. Where Earth of Mewni would have blue skies or, at night, a tapestry of constellations, Sam's hell had a permanent blue aurora over its entire firmament. A blue aurora that, Janna had assured the boy, was made of mind-bogglingly huge streams of souls, all flowing towards a gaping void in the center of its celestial vault. Right below that void, said Tom's maps, was a huge black fortress; inside that, a city; and inside that, Sam's palace. The land was no less eerie than the sky, with narrow bridges, hundreds of miles long, twisting and turning over an ocean sized chasm. A faint red glow shone from below the bottomless abyss, and every so often a huge black spike of rock rose from the depths, higher than the bridge they were in: a wicked torn stabbing the sky.

"Me and Star?" Marco asked. In the back of his mind, he hoped the troublesome girl had been reading the maps right. This would be a terrible place to get lost in, even with the finding ritual at hand as their last resort. "You are the one who almost got into a fist fight with her just now, Janna! Star and I are fine."

"Suuuure you are," she said, sarcastically.

"Ok, so, maybe it freaks me out a little bit that she seems to be getting more and more, well, maybe, forceful is the word? Like, the stuff she did back there. I mean, the situation definitely warranted it. That shape-shifting thing is going to give me nightmares for weeks! It's just, well, I have never seen Star be so... vicious?" he hesitated. "I just don't know how to keep her from being too far gone, you know? I can't imagine what she is going through, and I am not going to tell her how to deal with what happened to her mom. How could I? But, sometimes, I wish the old Star were back, that I knew how to bring her back. I worry if there is anything left of her. And well, it is super dumb that I am still worried about this too, but there is the thing with the spying spell, and how Star and Jackie haven't really talked since then. Also, I think I hurt Jackie, like really badly, even though she is being incredibly chill about it, and... why am I telling you all of this?"

"No idea," Janna shrugged.

They rode in silence for some time after that.

A huge thing that looked somewhat like a rose and somewhat like an octopus, passed flying above them. Its main body was a black bulb of amorphous 'petals', of a bright purple color. That form alone was the size of Echo Creek's cafeteria building. Attached to it was a mass of black tentacles, thick as sewer mains, each of them full of eyes and mouths. It screamed a piercing hunger-filled scream through ten thousand maws. For some reason, it reminded Marco of something, of someone. He knew that they should have been more afraid than they felt. But, honestly, they had been seeing things like that all day. They always passed by and left them alone. When asked about that, Janna had reminded him that they had all been invited, and that Sam had promised no harm would come to them if they didn't fuck things up. Her words, not his.

Marco wondered a bit about Janna. About how comfortable she was with all of this. The girl had always been fascinated by the morbid and creepy, but this was different. She had spent weeks living with Tom in the underworld, immersing herself in the lore, learning who knows what dark magical powers. Hell, it was hard enough coming to terms with the fact that Janna had real magical powers! It was one thing for Marco to see Star casting magic, or Tom throwing fireballs around, another to see Janna shoot lightning from her hands.

Then again, he had magic of his own. He knew the ritual of finding, and also knew that there were many more where that had come from. Marco knew that, once, back in Hekapoo's dimension, he had mastered dozens of powerful magical rituals, maybe more. He vaguely felt he could do things that would have given even Star a run for her money. After all, it had been enough to level the playing field with Hekapoo. But now? All he could do was find things, and whatever he found cost him a memory. He still didn't even know what he had forgotten, back when he used it to find a way in Tom's maps room. He hoped it hadn't been something important.

Maybe, maybe he could use that ritual to find the others, the memories he was missing. After all, if the ritual could find a place, or a person, why not a memory? It certainly could take them from him. He took a deep breath. It was worth a shot. He couldn't afford to keep being the most useless of the five of them. At least Jackie knew how to use a weapon. A red belt in karate was just not going to cut it for this. The problem was, how to name a memory? Perhaps...

He closed his eyes, lifted his closed fist to his mouth, muttered the words and exhaled. The tip of his finger shone bright with white light. In the back of his mind, he knew this was a bad idea. There was something dangerous about attempting rituals using vague and hopeful wording, and what he was asking for was as vague as could be. He traced the first glyph, rough and sharp, drawn in a single curving pattern along the air.

"What is that?" Janna asked, curious. Marco grinned at her, happy he could also still surprise the witch as well.

"Strength," he translated. He had asked to find strength. He didn't know the glyphs for spell, or ritual.

He continued drawing in mid air, a light glyph that curled intricately around the previous one, delicate and ephemeral. "And this one is thought, or memory. I am trying to find something... to remember something I forgot. A sealed memory is what Hekapoo called it."

"A sealed memory?" Janna muttered pensive. Her face turned into a frown, as if she were trying to recall something herself.

Marco's drawing shone brighter and folded unto itself, turning into a small sphere, a transparent flake of light. It flew towards him, to the middle of his forehead, and buried itself into his skull. He felt no different. Was the spell telling him that the strength was in him all along? That was nice and all, kinda poetic, but well, also terribly useless! Or was it just saying: 'Hey you lazy idiot, you have these memories inside you already. That you don't remember is not my fucking problem!'

Marco felt that was a weird way for him to phrase it, actually, even in his mind. It didn't sound like his own thoughts. It sounded like what someone else would say, someone Marco knew well. But who? Try as he might, he couldn't remember. Hekapoo? No, that wasn't quite right either... His thoughts were interrupted as Janna raised her hand in front of his face, fingers poised as if she were about to snap them together.

Janna clicked her fingers and a ball of blue flames floated in mid air in front of him, causing the boy to back away in surprise from the heat, and almost let go of the reins. She gave Marco the most smug look he had ever seen in her face, and there had been plenty to benchmark against.

"Hey, nice one, Janna," came a familiar male voice behind the two of them. Marco turned around to see Tom and Jackie walking into the driver compartment.

"Hey Marco, missed me?" Jackie joked. He, in fact, had.

Tom's otherwise glowing smile fell at that moment, as he looked out of the window.

"Belial and Belphegor!" he swore. "We are here..."

Marco looked back towards the front of the hearse and saw what the fiend meant. It was perhaps fifty miles away still, as the tentacled-monstrosity flies, and probably a lot further through the labyrinthine bridges of hell. But the fast-moving carriage would cross that span in just a handful more minutes. At the distance, he could see a humongous citadel, almost more a mountain that an edifice. On the corners, twelve enormous towers rose towards the sky, each ended by a claw-like crown of five spikes. It looked almost as if those were twelve titanic hands, holding up the black-hole at the center of this world's heavens.

Just as Marco was about to comment on the sight before him, he felt a jolt in his stomach, and the sight was no longer there. Nor the carriage. Nor the sky.

\----

"Ah, just in time!" a bemused voice exclaimed. Star scrambled to find its source, to figure out her new surroundings, to get ready to strike back at whatever had yanked her from the top of Tom's hearse and deposited here. But, where was 'here', exactly?

It looked like a gigantic foyer, one that reminded the princess of the throne room of Butterfly Castle. It was, in fact, eerily similar. The same minaret windows, the same diamond patterns, the blue banners. Oh god, it looked just like the place her mom had died in!

She had avoided that room the whole week she was back in Mewni, opting to give speeches in public squares and conduct more private government business in the council chambers. As soon as she was able, she had delegated all hearings in the throne room back to her dad. She felt sick, about to vomit, and not just because of the disorienting teleportation.

Except it wasn't Mewni's throne room. It was wrong in too many ways to be the real thing. The windows showed the hellish soul-river sky she had been watching before. The banners had a flaming sword surrounded by a twelve pointed circle, instead of any of the heraldry symbols more common in Mewni. The statues showed grotesque cyclopean creatures instead of famous historical mewmans. Most importantly, instead of two thrones, there was a single statue of an obsidian clawed hand, rising up from the floor. Languidly sprawled along its palm, lied a young man of marble-white skin, glowing golden hair, and blinding blue eyes.

"Hope you like the look, princess Star," Sam spoke equably. "I redecorated, in honor of my esteemed guests. Please, make yourselves... at home."

Star glared at the devil, and it took all of her self-control to not point her wand at him. Instead, she took a deep breath. When the princess spoke, her voice was a polite but cold monotone. "Well, thank you for the invitation, lord Sam, and for being such a gracious host. I assure you I wish nothing more than to be able to return such politeness in kind and in the same spirit it was given..."

The three humans looked at her dumbfounded. Even Tom seemed somewhat surprised, although he gave her thumbs up behind his own back.

'Geez', Star thought. They could give her a bit more credit! Sure, diplomacy wasn't like her strongest suit ever, but is not like she didn't see what this asshole was trying to provoke her into doing. They were safe as long as they didn't 'violate his hospitality', whatever that meant. If this passive aggressive bullshit was how he wanted to play it, then Star would oblige.

"Excellently spoken," Sam responded, not bothering to conceal his amusement. "I would assume, of course, that a guest as polite as yourself would have brought some suitable gift for their humble host?"

Fuck, that was some Miss Heinous level of protocol horseshit! Star saw the horror dawning in Tom's eyes. They had, of course, not had time to pack any presents. Not that she seriously believed they could have brought anything Sam wanted. It was just his next move in whatever sick game he was playing. It was also a completely different behavior than the one Janna had described to her before. But the girl had also warned Star that Sam changed attitude like a snake changes skins.

Either way, this had an easy fix. Star smiled back at the devil and slowly raised her wand, pointing it calmly to the space between the two, making sure there was no way in here it could be misinterpreted as an act of aggression. She closed her eyes and dipped down. She didn't know a spell for this occasion, but that didn't really matter when you did things the hard way, when you took the time to get to the chunks. With a thought, she summoned forth a huge treasure chest, filled with gold, fine silks, diamonds, and, most important, corn. It was much easier than recreating her entire room anyways.

"A sample of traditional mewnian crafts and goods," she announced with a curtsy. She refrained from adding where she thought Sam could stick all of that corn.

"A kind gift, and an even kinder sentiment," Sam remarked with a nod. Star got an eerie feeling from his tone, almost as if he could read her previous thought and was replying to it as well. Either way, he was openly grinning now. "Sorry for the abruptness in getting you here, by the way. I do not believe a visit to the slums of the city below would have been pleasant for any of you, or particularly entertaining for myself. I could always be convinced otherwise, of course."

"That won't be necessary," Tom interrupted, relieving Star from having to come up with a witty response to the implied threat. She looked down through the windows then, to the smoke filled labyrinth of alleys and cavernous dwellings of the city of Dis. Sam's castle, apparently, literally floated in the middle of the city, a thousand paces above the ground. The demon prince continued, "I just hope my carriage and horse are being taken good care of?"

"Ah, don't you worry about that, bro," Sam responded, effusively, yet evasively. As he regarded Tom, his eyes were not glowing anymore, and his expression had become almost witless compared to his earlier show of devious flair. "You should just relax and enjoy the party. Let your old pal Sam here take care of the dets, man!"

If anything, Star liked his previous mask better. Easier to know where they stood with that one.

Once again, as if he could tell what she was thinking, Sam's eyes lit up in harsh blue light as he turned back to her. "Now, I do believe you all brought your invitations. So how about we get you all more comfortable?" he asked.

It was clearly a rhetorical question, since just that very same instant, five pieces of black paper came flying out of the teens' pockets and bags, coming up to float right above their heads. The invitations exploded into a shower of ashen confetti atop each of them. As the flakes fell on Star, she felt her bright green dress lengthening and changing into a dark purple gown. The cartoon octopus in the middle transmuted itself into a large silver blooming rose. Long thorn-covered ivy-like vines extended out from the flower and through all of the dress fabric in an intricate pattern. Her purple plastic boots turned black and velvet, with sizable heels sprouting from their soles. Her stockings lost the stripped pattern and became entirely black and dangerously sheer, if not for the added length of the outfit's skirt. Her horned diadem remained, but turned into pure shining silver. Her cheekmarks themselves turned into mauve colored closed rosebuds.

Yes, Star thought, so much better this way. She felt elegant, she felt wicked, she felt above it all. The countess. She could work with that. She understood this was more than a costume. Maybe, if she had never read Eclipsa's notes, she wouldn't have gotten it so quickly. It wasn't that the disguise controlled her, that it overrode her own personality or thoughts, nothing quite so crude. But there were additional instincts, additional sensations, additional feelings that came with the role. Star liked those feelings. They resonated with her current state of mind, powerfully and insidiously. This was how she could tell this was going to be more dangerous than she initially thought. It was easier to resist a compulsion you found hateful, rather than one you found pleasant; or so had Eclipsa's little book of mischief warned, and advised, her.

She looked around, at the others. Marco was, well, he was hot. The champion. It sort of reminded her of older Marco, but it wasn't quite that. His body hadn't changed from his almost 15 year old self, and the outfit was very different from that he ended up wearing in Hekapoo's dimension, even if it shared a certain harsh aesthetic. He was clad in brown leather, which covered only his torso and upper legs, leaving his strong arms bare. He had a red bandanna around his head. A makeshift suit of armor covered his chest and abdomen, made of iron plates strewn together with leather straps. It was a scratched dented ugly thing, and Star loved it! The safe kid had never looked this dangerous. Hell, Sam had given him a double edged iron sword to match. Primitive by mewman standards, it resembled those weapons from her history classes back on Earth, from a place called Rome, or sometimes Greece. Those were the same, right? Star was never great at Earth history. Either way, Marco looked badass!

Tom also ended up rather dashing, in a very different way. The scoundrel indeed. He was dressed in black thin silky fabric for the upper half, with a V neck that reached well below the middle of his well-toned yet lean chest. The lower half was a very tight-fitting set of long leather pants. His hands were sprinkled by a series of rather interesting silver rings. He wore black and smooth leather boots. Star realized that Sam had given him a rose tattoo on the neck, and another one near his abdomen, whose shape she couldn't quite see fully under even the low collar of his shirt. His usual earing had been replaced by a silver one shaped into a sapphire-eyed skull.

Janna had said Sam liked men. Seeing the costume choices, Star had to believe that was true. The troublemaker herself, by contrast, was dressed in a plain black hooded robe, with a pentagram etched in what looked to be blood through the back of it. Knowing Janna, she would love it. But to the mewman princess, that was really, well, 'meh'. And Jackie... oh wow, and not the good kind!

Jackie was dressed in brown rags, her usually carefully tousled hair was messed up to hell and plastered together into grimy clumps, her face covered in dirt. Along her wrists were two very solid metal shackles, tied together by a short chain. Same thing around her feet, to the point she would need to shuffle more than walk. A lot of her was exposed through the old broken-down fabric, and yet, it wasn't an alluring look. This was the harsh vulnerable kind of exposed, not the playful kind. Mostly, Jackie looked miserable, and weak. Her expression looked shocked and pained, and so very lost, probably courtesy of those extra 'instincts' that came with her costume. The slave. Star glared at Sam, and noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that Marco was doing the same.

"How do you all like your threads? You look fantastic, if I may say so myself," beamed the devil. "The party itself doesn't start until tomorrow's afternoon, I am afraid. It would be good manners for you to keep the costumes on through your stay, of course. I'd be happy to entertain you tonight as well, perhaps a tour of..."

"Actually, Sam," Tom spoke. "We are thankful for the offer, but I believe we are all quite tired from a long journey. Perhaps showing us to our rooms would be enough for the day?"

He turned and winked at Star, and at the rest of them. Of course, the less time they spent with Sam around, the better. So long as they could find a polite excuse to get away.

"Mmm, Tom, bro, I am a little disappointed in you," remarked their host. Despite the words, he was grinning. "I do not believe that early rest matches the role of a proper scoundrel, now, does it?"

Right. Right. 'Be in character, or else'. Oh, Star was really getting to hate this guy. She looked back at Tom, to see if he was worried, as he often was when Sam was involved, or angry perhaps, at being toyed with like this. The demon prince was grinning back at his 'old pal'.

"Oh, you don't see a reason why a scoundrel would want to retire to his chambers with a crowd of beautiful ladies? Sam, that's exactly what this deviant catsuit of yours is telling me I should do!" Tom countered. "Guess you wouldn't understand." He flashed Sam a strangely cocky grin.

Star could hardly believe this was Tom. Sure, he had always been somewhat suave, and sometimes a bit forward when it came to her, personally. But, 'three beautiful ladies'? Really? She glanced at Janna, but the stupid cowl of her witch costume didn't allow anyone to see her face. She would have paid to see her reaction to that statement!

"Ah, well played, Tommy boy, very well played," Sam smiled. "I do believe you will keep to your role quite nicely, after all, bro. But, can all of your playmates say the same? Oh, this is going to be so much fun tomorrow... when we play for keeps. Very well... early rest it is. Goodnight."

He clapped his hands once, and they were all yanked out of place once more.

\----

Star looked out through the window of her room. Bonfires burned in the city below. It was subtle, this high up, but the scent was one of burning meat. She doubted it was a barbecue. Sam hadn't been kidding when he said they would probably not enjoy a visit down there. Star shrugged, hell was what hell was, after all. She closed her eyes and dipped down. In front of her, the ghostly green form of Moon the Undaunted appeared, floating in mid air, immobile. It was not her mom, and it was not the creature from last night. It was merely a simulation, a sculpture of light.

She pointed her wand at the image and pierced her mom's heart with a single ray of dark violet energy. The mirage popped away like a soap bubble. There. That was how easy it was. So, why hadn't she been able to do it? Why did she hesitate last night? She knew it wasn't her mom. She almost got them all killed!

With a growl of frustration, Star pointed her wand down through the open window. A blast of shadow and fire rained down on the burning city below, barely noticeable over the background chaos that was Dis. It relieved the princess of some frustration, and if she hit someone, well, if they were here, not only would they deserve it, she could hardly make their day any worse than Sam's domain would on its own.

Still, she had failed at the one thing she had been telling herself for days she would not fail at. She had practiced with the statues, many many times, to make sure to strike true. 'Aim it directly at its heart' had instructed Eclipsa. Star knew that her mom had failed to kill Toffee, that she had missed her shot, so the princess had diligently practiced her own aim. Even so, she had failed too. She felt angry at herself, she felt like a screwup and, despite the haughty persona flowing from her purple dress, she felt weak.

She heard a knock on the door.

Marco and Jackie, perhaps? She hadn't seen them since Sam clapped his hands and sent them all to their rooms. Apparently they had all been assigned to different lodgings. Hers looked very similar to her mom's old room in Mewni, of course, because that was the kind of thing that gave the devil his jollies or something. At this point, Star barely cared. There had at least been a warm dinner on the table when she had popped into existence there.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Me," responded a hesitant male voice.

"Tom?" she asked, surprised. "Come on in. Did you and Janna get separated in this place as well?"

"Nah, he put us both together," he replied as he entered the room. Looking around with wide eyes. "Is this...?"

"Yup," she cut him. She hoped that made it clear that she wasn't going to discuss whose room this looked like.

Tom looked like he was about to say something, but then seemly thought better of it. Instead, he added, "well, if its any consolation, he put Janna and I in much crappier digs. Think a cross between a rental room at a bordello and a pharmacy, with all these weird flasks on the walls."

"So, a room for a witch and whatever a 'scoundrel' is supposed to be in this case?" Star observed. "Anyways, Tom, why are you not there with Janna now, then?"

"Ah, well, she wanted to be alone right now, actually. She said something about figuring out a thing she might have forgotten," the demon prince explained. "And, well, after what happened last night, and what happened just now down there... I had to make sure you were ok."

"Tom, you didn't have to do anything," Star remarked pointedly. "I am fine. I can take care of myself."

The moment she said the words, she regretted them. After all, they weren't even true. If not for Tom, they would have all lost last night, possibly died, maybe something worse.

"I... I am sorry, Star, I didn't mean..." Tom looked like she had just slapped him on the face. He began walking towards the door. "Well, anyways, glad to see you are alright..."

It was a very different Tom than the one she had seen last night. She remembered him floating into the air, invoking whatever weird magics he had by virtue of being the ruler of the particular underworld they were in. She remembered the strain on his body from commanding those energies, and how fierce he had seem in his proclamation. Honestly, it had been kind of impressive. She had seen Tom angry and vengeful before, but never on someone else's behalf, and never quite so in control. When he fell, at the end, Star had been terrified. She jumped to catch him, even as her own body burned with pain.

"Tom, wait!" she stopped him. "I am sorry. And thank you... for checking on me, and for yesterday too. Also, well, thank you for being there for me, these past few days. I... I am not alright. I think it's pretty obvious I am not even close to alright."

Tom gave her a very faint smile. "Want to talk about it, Star? I might know a thing or two about not being alright."

She looked at him, hesitantly. For a moment, she wondered what was his angle here? What was Tom planning?

A few months ago, the answer would have been obvious, even to a far more naive version of herself. But Tom was with Janna these days, wasn't he? Plus, he had given no signal of wanting to be anything but friends with the princess since they patched things up. Except, well, last night, as he passed out, he had called her Starship again. Hadn't he? And now he was alone with her, in her room, at night, in his magical gigolo outfit. It was reasonable to wonder, wasn't it? Star didn't think she was being unfair to at least consider whether the demon might have less than perfectly chaste intentions in being here tonight. But was she wondering because she feared he might have ulterior motives? Or because she hoped so?

Her glance traveled up the slim leather pants and the dark silk shirt, to the lean and toned chest underneath, and the mysterious tattoo half visible in the exposed part of his chest. Whatever did peek out was vaguely triangle-shaped. In most other boys, the ensemble would have perhaps looked just a little too feminine, but Tom managed to pull it off quite nicely. Something inside tugged at her as she regarded the fiend. Was the feeling her own? Or perhaps something in her own role? Either way, it was a terrible idea. She was with Marco, Tom was with Janna, and every time there had been something between the two of them before it had ended in tears.

Tom blushed and then looked down, guiltily. "I, I know how this looks like, but... Just talk, I swear! I can handle this stupid costume. After what I did to you that night, the night of the concert... I don't want to hurt you like that again, Star!"

Star pondered the words for a minute. Then realized she had something else to say about that night, something she should have said back in St O's, or during the last week. Something she only now fully understood, with the perspective of much deeper wounds.

"Tom, I think I am the one who should have apologized for that night. You told me exactly what you wanted, and I said yes, and then I used you," she pointed out. "I am not saying you going all fire and brimstone at the end was a nice look. But, well, now that I understand what having real anger burn within you feels like, anger you can't quench or suppress, I am just saying... I get it. I hurt you, and you made an effort not to hurt me in return, as best you could. Then I acted as if you had been the bad guy, well, the only bad guy, as if I was blameless."

He tried to say something and Star cut him off with a wave of her hand.

"But that's not the worst part," she continued. "I knew you were in pain before, since we broke up, since even before that. I knew you were dealing with dark difficult things, ugly things, and my response was to abandon you. And now, when it is I who is hurting and full of fire, and no one can stand to be around me, you have been there for me... For all I have complained about you before, and for all I made you say you were sorry, in the end you are a better friend to me than I was to you, Tom. I am sorry."

"Star, you don't need to apologize," Tom walked up towards her and hugged her. "It was not your job to fix my problems, it was mine. You have probably been the best friend I have ever had, and the best girlfriend too."

'Wait? Was he saying...? What about Janna?' Star thought.

"Maybe you are right Tom. It wasn't my job. But neither is yours to help me with mine. Even Marco has no idea what to do with me now. Hell, even I don't know what I want..." she vented.

It really wasn't the human boy's fault, he was doing the best he could to be there for Star. But, well, he didn't get it. There was no darkness in Marco Diaz's life, other than that Star herself brought him. And she didn't want to show him even half of what was boiling inside of her now. But Tom, maybe Tom would understand.

"What do you think you want, Star?" he asked, cautiously.

"To avenge my mom," she replied without hesitation. Then, a few seconds later, "To get rid of this need to hurt someone, badly. To feel something other than anger, and emptiness, and cold. To not hurt him, of all people..."

Star had been so lonely these days. Yes, she was avoiding Marco, at least as much as he avoided her. But it was not that she didn't want the company. She had fantasized about being with him so many times this week, about crying, and shouting, about breaking things, and about making love. But she had to retain control, because if she didn't, if she let go, she would hurt him. Even now, she was thinking of doing something that would surely hurt him, if he ever knew; him, and Tom, and Janna too.

Ah, hell, screw Janna! She had been nothing but a snappy bitch to Star these days. And screw Marco too. After all, he hadn't come to find her, Tom had! Marco had Jackie, Jackie and self-righteous sermons about how Star was turning evil for wanting to get some payback on her mom's killer. He got two, it was only fair that she got two as well, wasn't it?

With her new outfit's heels, Star was almost at eye level with Tom, so it was just a matter of pushing herself slightly. 

She kissed him. 

He didn't recoil from it, and soon their lips were opening, their tongues intertwined in passion. Star's hands roaming the sides of his torso. His hands behind her back, seeking her wings.

She pushed herself away. "Wait, Tom! I shouldn't do this!" she exclaimed. It was crazy! It was the costume speaking, and all of her frustration listening to it!

"Right, right, you are in a vulnerable moment, and you are with Marco, and I am being a huge jerk again..." Tom started walking back horrified. "I am so sorry, Star."

"What? Are you kidding?! Weren't you listening just now?!" Star shouted at him. "You are not being a jerk. I am! I... I was about to use you again, Tom. I am lonely, and messed up, and angry at... at too many people, and I was just about to foist all that stuff on you, again, because you are the one person I am apparently ok with hurting, even though lately you have been nothing but kind to me. I am sorry..."

"So, basically, you mean you are not in love with me - which, big surprise, I knew that - but that you want me for... for what exactly?" he asked.

"I, I haven't been with Marco since my mom died. I don't even know if we are still a thing. I guess we are. But he can't deal with the darkest parts of me right now, nor can I show them to him, and those are the ones that want to do this," she explained. "I don't want to stay like this forever: cold on the outside, boiling with rage on the inside. I want to be the girl Marco used to like, and I do still like him too. But I do miss... I need... I am sorry... I thought... I mean... fuck, I am horrible."

"You thought you could pump me and dump me? Use me to get off and to unleash all the dark stuff you got clogged up in there?" Tom clarified. He was remarkably candid, and remarkably accurate. She nodded, ashamed. Then, he added, "Ok, works for me, Star. Let's do this."

"What?! Tom, it is not a nice thing... I mean, I know you like me - like, like me like me - and this is not fair to you!" Star reminded him. "I can't give you what I know you really want from me. Besides, what about Janna?"

He closed the distance between them in a swift step. Looking at Star in the eyes, he replied, "You told me exactly what you wanted, and I said yes. What happens to me now is my own damn fault. Is roughly what you said before, so it sounds extremely fair to me, Star."

He kissed her deeply, hungrily, pushing her body against his with his right arm. She kissed him back, and felt something foul and nasty, and disturbingly enjoyable, break free inside her. She was no longer at the point of giving any more warnings. Tom wanted her to let go, and she would. So much pent up frustration, so much pent up stress, and far worse things.

She felt a devious inspiration then, 'The Countess' no doubt, and she pointed her wand at Tom's chest. She threw him back into her bed with a relatively gentle wave of force. Relatively gentle for the two of them, of course. The demon prince yelped, not in pain, but in surprise.

"Tom, sit there. I have something to show you," she announced. His shock turned into a delighted grin as Star put the wand down by the floor, slowly kicked away her boots, and began undoing the lace strings holding the blouse of her gown together.

Sure, the rules said to stay in costume at all times, but somehow she didn't believe Sam would count this one against them. It didn't seem like his style.

Tom's three eyes were glued to the middle of the princess' chest now. Whatever this dress was, it had more lift there than anything the mewman had worn before. But even so, it was not like there was much to lift in the first place. Tom licked his lips hungrily, and that gave Star all the confidence boost she needed to continue. She let the fabric fall from over one of her shoulders, and the dress slipped down until it was barely above her nipple. She stopped there, as long as she could hold, resisting the urge of rushing the surprise.

He looked at her attentively and impatiently, but said nothing. Star closed her eyes, dipped down, and the fabric began turning translucent. Slowly, ever so slowly, it vanished. She raised her left hand, and a web of green ribbons of light rose from beneath the floor. It passed through the furniture of the room, but was solid to the two teens. It lifted him from the bed and herself from the floor. Naked, smiling, she began crawling along the spiderweb towards a very bewildered Tom.

"Mephistopheles on a monocycle, Starship! ... I mean, Star, sorry... Since when can you do this sort of thing without your wand?!" the demon prince asked. Apparently she had managed to surprise him indeed.

"Oh, 'Starship' is fine, actually," she remarked, as she reached the middle of the web, rolling herself to his side, pressing her naked body against his still clothed form, whispering in his ear. "And you'd be surprised the things I can do now..."

Her eyes glowed green as she traced a finger through the exposed triangle of his chest, a thin trace of green flame burned below her touch. It was what he had done to her, many times before, light pain, soothing pleasure. Tom gasped. "How about you show me, again, what you can do to me?"

She rolled Tom's body over her own, with extreme ease, positioning him above herself. She crossed her legs around his, pressing her naked crotch against the leather pants of his costume. She felt a swell in the hard fabric reward her performance.

Clumsily, still incredulous, Tom began undoing the buttons of his shirt, letting it fall open to the sides. It was a star. The tattoo. Of course it was a star. A message for her, then, from Sam. He knew this would happen, the smug asshole.

"Star, you are going to need to let go a little bit there if you want me to remove those too," the demon prince remarked, looking down to his pants, just as he threw his shirt to the floor through the magic net. Star just wiggled, relishing the probably uncomfortable pressure building up inside the boy's trousers.

"I thought you were supposed to be some dashing rogue with those on, my devilish scoundrel," she joked. "Why don't you figure a way to make me let go?"

Tom looked at her confused for only one more instant, then he smiled. "Starship, you should know, I am a devilish scoundrel in any clothing."

His claws snapped closed around her wrists, and he lowered his mouth against her neck. He kissed her, at first. Then he bit softly. Then he slid the tips of his razor sharp teeth all over the right side of her nape, and down to the shoulder. If anything, it made her legs close tighter around him, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Oooh," exclaimed Star, appreciatively.

He breathed a hot excited breath along the front of her neck as he moved his head to the other side, repeating his previous actions on her left. After that, he moved up, to nibble on her lobe. He was moving rhythmically against her as he did so. She could feel his strong naked chest against her breasts and the texture of the raised leather against her mound. She wondered if that would stain his pants.

As he rocked against her, he begun to slid lower and lower, until his mouth was hovering over her breast. She waited, and waited. Her entire focus on his breathing over her hard expectant nipple. Instead, she felt a claw caress the boundary between her outer lips and her inner thigh. Suddenly, she opened her eyes, and realized Tom was grinning at her from below. As she relaxed in anticipation of his mouth over her boob, he had escaped the hold of her legs! They were now around his abdomen, and he was busy pushing his pants away from his ankles.

"Seems like I win," Tom remarked, as he lowered his mouth over her chest, his tongue dancing circles around the small mounds and flicking at her pert nipples. Star disagreed, this seemed to her a lot like her winning.

Then again, nice as his kisses and touches were, she was looking for something more... visceral. She wanted to let go of things inside her that weren't all puppies and rainbows. It was why she wanted him tonight, him in particular. She dug her fingernails into Tom's back. The demon didn't even seem to notice. With another plunge into the depths of her magic, Star sent waves of pain directly into his back muscles through the tips of her fingers. Violet lightning crisscrossed his purple flesh like ivy over a stone wall. The demon prince grunted and howled.

"Tom, I am going to need you to hurt me too," she explained.

Two fingers plunged themselves into her cunt, just as the boy bit hard on her nipple. Shit! Ouch! Fuck! Yeah, that was what she was talking about, actually! Star howled and moaned. 

"Good boy!" she remarked.

Soon, she got used to the motions of Tom finger-fucking her, and the pain was replaced by pleasure as her already wet sex became drenched enough to accommodate the fast motions. His teeth scrapping along her chest, as well as the embracing fires, continued to provide a source of soothing torment. They proceeded that way for a while. Every so often, he would hold his fingers inside her as his open palm rubbed her most sensitive spot from the outside, slowly, almost gently, just as he bit hard on her breast for contrast.

"Aaaah, fuck. Ok, Tom, my turn," she eventually spoke. The entire web twisted around them, and she was now on top of him once more. "How do you like it?" she asked, confidently. A far cry from their previous time together.

"However you need it, Starship," he responded with an equally cocky grin.

With that invitation extended to her, Star proceeded to rock herself over the boy's erect member. Soon, effortlessly, he was inside her. She bounced up and down a bit, but something wasn't right. It was not doing it for her. Not in the way she needed.

The princess slowed down and pushed Tom down with her arms and chest. She pressed his wrists against the magical net, and soon two extra ribbons of light snapped around her partners arms, then two around his legs. She kissed him softly. With a grin, she instructed him calmly, "I am going to need you to struggle."

Tom blinked for a moment, then returned her smile. He began trashing, pulling against the magical restrains. It was not enough. Star didn't feel like he was trying to escape, not really, just giving a very half-hearted show of it. Frustrated, she pushed two fingers towards the middle of Tom's star tattoo. A burst of green flames sprouted from it, burning him for real. She began tracing the contours of the star on his flesh.

Tom yelled. His eyes turned into bright red coals. He began trembling and fighting for real, and as he did, Star continued to push herself up and down his cock, faster and faster. She felt powerful, she felt in control. This is what she wanted, what she needed. To hurt Tom, to subdue him, to have him squirm below her mighty fury! This was why she couldn't have done this with Marco, why she needed the demon tonight. This time, he was what she needed, what she wanted. "Toooom!" she screamed.

"Staaarrgh!!" he shouted in agony. Then, as she removed her hand from his abdomen, worried that she was harming him for real, he added, in the softest whisper, "... continue."

She looked at her hands, they were dark, filled with glowing purple veins. In her arousal, she had long ago forgotten to maintain the stupid glamour. She pressed both her palms into Tom's chest, and let some of the darkness flow out of her. Red fire burned all around them as Tom screeched. Not wanting to burn the place down, and anger their infernal host in the process, Star contained the flames in a shielding bubble. It was remarkable that, in the throes of passion, she still had this much control. She was so more powerful than she had ever been. It felt... exhilarating.

She focused on her movements then, on the wonderfully filling sensations of impaling herself on Tom's cock. She kept one hand on his chest, pumping pain into him, as she brought the other one down to her sex. The combined stimulation of her trashing prey and her own fingers were drawing her closer and closer to the end. Tom's own pulsating orgasm was the final straw that sent her flying out of her skull. Almost literally so.

She could, for a second, see the scene from the outside. She was in the room's ceiling, floating amongst a green mist. She saw her own expression of maniacal glee and blissed-out climax. She saw Tom's burning red eyes, and the charred marks in the flesh of his chest. In an instant, she was back inside her own body.

"Oh, crap! Tom, are you ok?" she asked as she rolled herself down to his side. Star knew Tom was tough, really tough. It was the only reason she had allowed herself to go this far. But what if she had gone too far, even for him?

"I am fine, Starship. Demon, remember? I can handle a bit of doom and hellfire. It is... an experience," he smiled, even as he winced. "Guess now I have an idea of how Janna feels..."

Star saw Tom's expression turn sour at this, and perhaps a bit guilty. Right, Janna! Tom was with her now, wasn't he? And they had just... And what about Star herself? She was with Marco! And with Jackie, sort of. What was it they had said about other people, a lifetime ago? 'If either of you ever have some other guy you like, then we should talk about it, and have the same deal apply. I would feel like such a jerk otherwise...' is what Marco had said. This didn't seem like talking about it first, though.

She had felt justified, before; almost, albeit not completely, in the right. She had reasoned that Janna was irritating, and Marco too self-righteous, and that anyways two for two was fair. Star didn't feel so sure about those arguments now.

"I think this was a mistake, Tom," she remarked.

"Yeah..." he answered.

Star didn't know if it was her imagination, but he sounded even more guilty than she felt.

\----

She was in the room's ceiling, floating amongst a green mist. She saw Star's expression of maniacal glee and blissed-out climax. She saw Tom's burning red eyes, and the charred marks in the flesh of his chest. In an instant, she was back inside her own body. Jackie Lynn Thomas was shocked pale by what she had just seen.

She turned around in the pile of straw that Sam had assigned her as a bed, towards the boy who rested sitting against the stone wall of their cell. He wore the same shocked expression she was sure she had.

"Marco, I am not sure what just happened, but I think I just saw Star and..."

"Yeah, me too..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah... that just happened. It's tomstar folks, but not as you know it!
> 
> Believe it or not, this was planned way before Season 3 brought us a much fluffier version of tomstar. In fact, originally I was kind of afraid that this pairing would be reviled by the fandom in general (it wasn't in canon, but the way it happens here it still might be, of course ;) ), which explains the wording for Chapter 17, First Comment, Secret #2, Password: _justfiends_
> 
>  **Coming up next** : Chapter 24: Each Alone  
>  _In which our main three have disturbing dreams, and Janna finally shows her true colors_


	24. Each Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our main three have disturbing dreams, and Janna finally shows her true colors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Published on Feb 14/15) Oh well, I just realized that, this is like, the **opposite** of a Valentine's Day special. I swear it wasn't even intentional.

Star Butterfly sat atop her pink flying cloud. It was wider than usual, because it had to accommodate more people than usual. Around her laid Marco, Tom, and Jackie too. They were all naked, while Star wore the Countess disguise Sam had given her. They were all happy, they did as Star wished, as her mind commanded. A thought, and Tom began massaging her back. A gesture, and Marco leaned in to kiss her. A nod, and Jackie fed her some grapes.

She was dreaming, of course, Star knew that. It was a good dream.

Below her was the city of Dis, or at least her mental image of it. Its narrow streets looked like those of Mewni, except they were submerged in rivers of flame, and there, covered up to their waist in burning oil, were the damned. There was Ludo and his monsters, except Buff Frog, of course, who was nice. There was Toffee, for sure deserving of any and every torment hell could dish out. There was Princess White, and that snake monster thing that had lived inside Tom's vase. There was the green phantasm that pretended to be, but certainly wasn't, her mother. There was Brittney, because why not? And Ruberioth, because of that stupid song. Sam was there too, and he was in pain, for all that it made no sense. Yeah, it was the people who had wronged Star that now suffered in hell. Their cries were music to her ears.

"Oh dear," spoke a voice above Star. The princess looked up to see Eclipsa descending slowly, floating in mid air by holding on to a large purple umbrella. As soon as she matched Star's altitude, she stopped there in place. "This is certainly some interesting imagery, don't you think?"

"Meh, it's just a dream," Star shrugged. "Dreams are weird."

"They most certainly are," Eclipsa agreed, with a twinkle in her eye. "They can also be rather insightful."

The older Butterfly glanced meaningfully at Marco, and suddenly he was wearing a pair of square glasses. Still deliciously buck naked, mind you, but with glasses. 

He cleared his throat, "Well, obviously a power fantasy, with some cathartic revenge imagery, and rather blatant sexual overtones. At the same time, having all three of us tend to you, represents..."

"Sssshh," Star brought a finger to the boy's mouth as she silenced him. Then she turned back towards Eclipsa. "Ok, I get it: Bad dream about being bad is bad. 'Dark queen' ascending, yada yada..."

"Do you feel... dark?" Eclipsa asked, gently.

"No!" Star shouted. Green lightning sprouted all around cloudy, the flames below rose and roared furiously. Eclipsa lifted an eyebrow. "Okay. Yes. Yes I do. I mean, I don't think I am doing evil things, not exactly. I mean, seducing Tom... if you can even call it that... was... bad... and maybe I owe Marco a huge apology... But, on the other hand, is not like that qualifies for 'great prophetic evil' bad, does it? And I do want to destroy the thing that killed my mom, I really do, which is sort of a dark thought to have. But that doesn't mean I really want to cast Ruberioth or Brittney into the fires of hell! I think I still know the difference there..."

"Sleeping with a demon and using the dark arts to vanquish your foes... I was condemned for lesser crimes," Eclipsa pointed out. "But as you say, that alone perhaps didn't truly make me evil. It did make me a Dark Queen, however, in the eyes of many. So, I think what you need to ask yourself is, what are you afraid of? That you will be called evil? Or that you will do something you yourself think of as evil?"

"I..." Star thought about it. She thought really hard. "I am afraid I will change the definition. That I will do things that are evil, and not see them as such."

"For example?" Eclipsa pressed on. "Torturing the songstrell?"

"No! Of course not!" Although, a part of Star genuinely wanted to, which scared her enough. "For example: sleeping with Tom. For example: hurting him, even though he said it was ok... I don't think I would have done it, you know, before. Isn't wanting to hurt people, like, in general, evil?"

Eclipsa shrugged. "Don't look at me. Figment of your imagination, after all. I don't think the real Eclipsa could answer that for you either. Only you can answer those kinds of questions as they apply to yourself."

"Gee, thanks! Super insightful dream and all!" Star grumbled. "Couldn't we go back to the version of the dream that involved shoulder rubs, kisses, and fruit?"

"Well, Star," spoke Jackie, tentatively. "I think, and I might be wrong, but I think, that you could do that easily, if that dream hadn't been making you feel so incredibly guilty."

Star groaned in frustration.

"Word of advise, Princess Butterfly," came a smug voice arising from the flames below. "Guilt is overrated."

Sam, or Star's dream of Sam, to be precise, floated up from the sea of flames. His body still burned, even in mid air, but it seemed not to faze him in the slightest.

"Oh, sorry... I meant: Oh. Ouch. It burns. I am in pain," he added in a monotone. "Better?"

"Oh, right," Star muttered. "Here it comes: the "go ahead and just be evil!" speech, as delivered by myself through the most unsubtle dream spokesperson imaginable!"

"Now, now, that's not what I said," Sam remarked, with a mock pout. He held both his palms up. "I said guilt is overrated. Not goodness. Not principles. Not morality. Guilt."

"Isn't feeling guilty a sign that I did something I shouldn't have done, though?" Star asked. Involuntarily, she looked at her dream image of Tom. But he was immobile, looking down. So were Marco, and Jackie. Even Eclipsa had been frozen in mid air.

"Perhaps. But, well, did it stop you from doing it? Did you not know, as you were doing it, that it was the wrong thing to do?" Sam asked. He motioned all around them with both arms, "You know, there are a lot of people that say that the reason souls end up in hell is that they crave the punishment, that it is their guilt that drags them here, not their actions."

He smiled, a mirthless knowing smile.

"They are wrong, of course, but the point is still rather poetic," the devil clarified. "You make no one's life better by feeling guilty once you have picked your desired course of action. Self-flagellating is not going to heal Tom's flesh, or undo having fornicated with him, or clean up your betrayal of those you think you love. However minor those sins might be in the cosmic scale, they are now your own, whether you regret them or embrace them. Feeling guilty will certainly not revive those you will kill, or undo the dark magic you have summoned. It will not protect your friends of the harm you already know you will likely inflict on them, either, and it has not prevented you from putting them at risk. You agonized many many times about scrying on them, and yet you never stopped, nor told them about it, until you got caught." He paused then, letting Star digest all of that. "You see how guilt is useless, or very nearly so? My point is not about what you should or shouldn't do, then. But if you are going to sin, at least own the sin! Enjoy it!"

Star felt Tom's hands back on her shoulders, Marco's palm rubbing her arm. Jackie, like a clockwork automaton, began moving again, feeding Star once more.

"Have your fantasy, Star! Be loved, served, feared... forgiven. Watch me burn and whimper inside your mind! Do as thou will, and once done, don't give yourself hell about it. There will be time enough for that! Do good, or do evil, or both, or neither, but don't waste your time yelling at yourself inside your skull for what you did or know you will do anyways! Regret makes you no more virtuous than satisfaction." Sam grinned wildly and then began truly yelling in agony, crying even, quite convincingly, as he fell back towards the burning city below.

It was only much later, long after she'd woken up, that it occurred to Star that, while nothing Eclipsa, Marco, or Jackie had said were things Star didn't know on some level or another, that whole anecdote about why people thought they went to hell was not something that would normally occur to her.

\----

Marco Diaz looked down at the girl lying asleep in front of him and sighed. He had covered her with the remains of his tattered red hoodie. She needed it more than he did, after all; winters were brutal in Ennio, and a roof over their heads was a luxury neither of them might ever know again. He leaned against the huge stone walls that enclosed them all, more a pen for wild animals than a prison for humans. Then again, many would dispute that those housed there were human in the first place.

The girl herself had narrow snake-like slitted pupils in her eyes, vaguely batracian looking limbs, and bat-wings for ears. What did the guards see when they looked at her? A freak? A monster? An abomination? Or just a poor damned soul with a deadly disease to be contained? Yet, as Marco watched her sleep, as he saw her shiver in the cold winter night, as he remembered her lost scared glances a few hours ago - when she was lowered down inside the great walled circle that was Ennio Prison - he could not think of her as anything but a scared little girl. More human than those who patrolled above the walls. 

She was very young, perhaps younger than Marco had been when he began his quest to hunt down Hekapoo and her clones. How long ago had that been? Seven years? Eight? Nine? He wasn't sure. There were known gaps in his memory, after all. Either way, he was older now, well into his twenties. He was much tougher, harder, that he used to be, and yet, apparently, not entirely disabused of misguided compassion. 

He sighed. Allion would have yelled at him for being such a fool. Why did he do this to himself? He knew the girl would not make it through the week, with or without his assistance. That was half the reason he hadn't bothered to ask her name yet. This place was not made for little lost girls. This place was hell.

"Hey pretty boy, how about you hand that sweet little thing over? Doesn't seem you are making much use of her," Marco heard. He raised his eyes to find himself looking at another prisoner, a burly 'freak' who was giving him a particularly nasty grin. Case-in-fucking-point.

The man was huge, taller than people had any right being and twice over as broad. His entire body was this amorphous blob of swollen human flesh covered in gray protrusions of some metallic mineral formation. His right arm was solely made of the same seemingly inorganic substance, and ended in sharp knife-long metallic claws. He had one good eye and a rocky spike protruding out of the socket where the other one should have been. Saying he was merely ugly would have been a feat of politeness, and a misdeed of dishonesty.

"What it looks like is none of your business, bud," Marco replied, without so much as a shrug. "She is with me. Save yourself the trouble and move along."

"Now, now, we are both reasonable individuals. Surely she is not worth much trouble to you? After all, we all know you only have eyes for one girl in all of this joint," the stranger remarked with a snickering laugh.

Right, he probably meant Hekapoo. Why was it that they always mistook his quest to extinguish the clones' flames for some sort of bizarre romantic pursuit? Couldn't a guy voluntarily lock himself in a hellish prison as a way to get close to a woman, and have that just be a purely platonic assassination attempt?

"Whereas me, well, I haven't had myself a birdie like that to warm me at night in quite some time. You know how few of them last even the first day here," he explained, as if he was just haggling over yet another piece of salted beef from their morning rations. "So, I reckon... there is quite a bit of trouble I am willing to get myself into for a succulent little morsel such as her..."

Well, that, right there, was the problem with people arriving to Ennio every single fucking week. Stay out of trouble long enough, and your reputation melted away, and then trouble found you. If this asshole thought Marco was just going to hand him a teenage girl to rape, in order to avoid a fight, then his reputation had surely decayed. If he thought he had a chance in hell of intimidating him, or taking her by force in front of him, then his reputation had most certainly all but vanished by now. When had this imbecile been captured? Not this week, too cocky for that. A month ago? Two months? Three? ... No, not three, Marco had roughed up seven members of the Primal Growl Gang three months ago, people would surely remember that.

"Fine," Marco sighed and stood up. "Let's get this over with. Last chance to walk away, you walking mountain of Osacontt's dung. Don't say I didn't warn you."

He always did. They never listened.

The other prisoner charged at Marco. Literally charged, like a bull or a rhino, using his bulk and potentially superhuman weight in an attempt to bulldoze his opponent. This guy put the brute in brute force! Marco had seen more fighting skill out of fresh cadets in his early days as a soldier for the guild in Zonst. Normally, he would dodge, but if he did, then he wasn't sure this idiot wouldn't just trample over the sleeping girl.

Instead, he brought his palms together, rapidly executed a sequence of twelve hand gestures as he repeated as many words in the old tongue of Riradesh. He felt the ritual warm him up, despite the icy wind around them, he felt his muscles strain to contain the power, his bones rattle under the magical fire coursing through his veins. Swiftly, he jumped over the girl's body, and raised a single hand in front of him. His palm made contact with the iron-like skin of the lowlife's right arm, effortlessly stopping his momentum.

"What the hell?! How did you..." the thug started to ask. 

Marco simply smiled and drove his other fist right into the soft fleshy bits of the deformed man's stomach. He probably shouldn't have felt so great about hurting the poor bastard. Everyone in Ennio was a victim first and foremost, reacting inhumanly to inhuman circumstances. Yet, there were those in here that he couldn't truly muster compassion for, no matter how sad their own fate, because of the pain they so readily inflicted on others. This animal was clearly one such case. Marco tried to compensate for the effects the ritual had on his mind, but, honestly, he didn't try too hard. He didn't think he would mind hurting this bastard even in his unaltered state. Right now, high on the side-effects of the spell, he relished causing him pain.

The massive prisoner clutched his stomach with his left hand, then clawed at Marco's face with his right. Once again, it was trivial for the young man to block with his left arm, holding onto the crushing weight of the metal appendage by its tree-thick wrist. The Fierceness Ritual didn't just make him a hundred times as strong, it also made him at least ten times as nimble. His opponent had lost the fight as soon as Marco had completed the gestures involved. He squished the iron until he heard the bones beneath crack.

"Augghhhh!!" yelped his opponent, tears of pain falling from his good eye socket. Marco had an idea right then, a delicious idea. He knew it was the ritual talking, but, well, he was listening. There would be time for regrets later. He pulled the mountain of a man down by tugging at his broken arm, moved his hand along the limb towards the thug's face, placed his thumb right in front of his remaining eye, and pressed down, hard.

The shout that followed was one of primal torment.

"There, there, don't cry," Marco chided, cheerfully. "Now, what were you saying about her being worth the trouble?"

"I... I... I was wrong... I am sorry... sir," the giant spoke through the pain. Marco was half impressed by that, most people would not be able to do much more than howl in agony after a broken arm and a freshly ruptured eyeball. "Please, let me go. You'll never see me again, I swear..."

"No, I won't. No one will. Now, what did you call her? 'A succulent little morsel'?" Marco pondered as he moved his right arm back once more. Slowly, the limb began turning a dark shade of purple. It became sinuous and pliable. The tentacle appendage kept growing and changing, until it had taken the distinct form of his demonic colleague. "I suppose you are going to be much less appetizing than that, but my pal here is not a picky eater... Kar, it's supper time, Bon Appetit."

**"Oh boy! Have I mentioned how infinitely more fun you are to be around when you do the whole bad boy power-up thing, kid?,"** spoke a toothy mouth in the middle of his very own monster arm. **"You should really do it more often!"**

It was just a demonic curse that Star had casted on Marco by mistake, back a lifetime ago, before Hekapoo's quest. It was alive and intelligent, and an altogether vicious asshole, with a taste for human entrails. It turned out he had a name too, or had given himself a name: Kar'Margorach. Most days, Marco wished he could get rid of the damn thing. But sometimes, Kar came in handy. He had been useful in getting Marco 'admitted' into Ennio and its deformed crowd. And right now, he was making quick work of devouring the stupid bully in front of them. It had started with the prey still alive, but that, of course, did not last long.

Marco felt satisfied, happy even. Sure, most of it was the side-effect of the ritual. It made him... less squeamish than he would otherwise be, perhaps a tiny bit callous, 'bloodthirsty' might not be entirely incorrect either. He knew he would hate the way he was acting now, the very thoughts that crossed his mind, as soon as the spell wore off. He would be sick to his stomach. But, right now, all he could think was that after something like this, surely his reputation as someone not to be messed with would last more than a few couple months. 

His thoughts, and Kar's meal, were interrupted by a high pitched yell coming from behind him.

He turned around to see the young girl fully awake, crawling her way along the wall, away from the fight, away from him. She dragged herself, half limping, as if still unused to her new anatomy. His own hoodie laid discarded on the floor.

"Oh, you are awake," Marco remarked. "Sorry about that. Don't worry. You are safe now."

He gave her what he intended to be a friendly smile, and waved a bloodied left hand at her. Behind him, there was the sound of bones breaking and Kar burping loudly.

"Oh god! Oh god!! S...Stay away from me!!" she yelled, and broke into a run.

Marco woke up sweating.

\----

Jackie opened her eyes. She could feel the clumps of straw in her hair, the harsh material scratching her skin even through the tattered fabric of her costume. She was lying on the same pile of straw that Sam had arranged to be her bed, in the same clothes he had assigned to her. But she was no longer in her cell, no longer in Sam's castle, no longer in hell. At least, not in the literal kind. 

Around her, and her small pile of hay, was the open courtyard of St Olga's, where she had once fought princess White. Marco was nowhere to be seen. Nor, for that matter, was anyone else, until...

"Wow, shit! We look like crap!" came a voice from right behind her.

Jackie turned around and found herself face to face with, well, with herself. But while she was wearing the rags of the slave costume, the other version of her, the one standing tall above, giving her a pitying look, was dressed in bright golden armor. The same armor she had worn back when she last was here. The armor she fought a duel in. Prince Jack's literal (and figurative) knight in shining armor outfit.

"Who? How? Why?" the girl managed to ask, still disoriented.

"You, a better you, the version of you as you wish you truly were," answered her mirror double, as to the matter of who she was. She then proceeded to address the second and third questions, as well: "How? In a dream. Why? Because we need to talk. Oh boy do we need to talk..."

A dream? That, that made sense. It was as good an explanation as any. Better than just assuming she had completely lost her mind!

"About what?" Jackie asked, cautiously, as she sat up to face her doppelganger. She was still not sure this was what it seemed. She had never had a dream like this one before. But, then again, was that not true of most dreams?

"About how disappointed we both are with, well, with ourselves," the other Jackie replied dryly. "I mean, just look at us. We went from this," she motioned her hand over her own form, then, in a swift movement, she unsheathed the golden magic sword and drove the point forward, stopping just in front of the Jackie's true nose, "to that!"

"Oh, come on, that's not fair," Jackie pushed the sword aside with her hand. "Ok, I don't like this stupid costume, obviously, or else we wouldn't be having this chat. But is what we need to wear to get through this crazy costume party. I think I can deal with that for two days, and then we are rid of it. Big deal."

"That's not what we meant," Prince Jack shook his head. "Think, Jackie! Of course we need to wear the damn thing, you know... out there. But this is a dream, we can look however you want! And yet you chose to keep the rags on." He sighed. "You want to know why? Because that's how we see ourselves now. And I am here to vehemently protest that!"

Jackie froze on the spot. How she saw herself now? That couldn't be right! This costume was all a cruel prank, after all, from some demonic asshole no less! It was a disguise that she would endure with grace and as much dignity as humanly possible, but not one that she would chose for herself. Not that she really saw her, permanently, as the haughty Prince Jack either, but...

"You are so full of shit, dude!" Prince Jack interrupted her thoughts. "It is how we see ourselves: weak, broken, defeated."

An image flashed before Jackie's eyes: Her, charging valiantly with a sword, a sword opaque rather than shining golden. She heard an exasperated, dismissive voice, 'Oh, for corn's sake.' She saw herself being kicked away, her sword broken in half, and her body doubling over to vomit.

"Now, Jackie, answer me: Did that look like me? Or like you?" Prince Jack asked coldly.

"Well, easy for you to say it!" Jackie retorted angrily. "We were powered up by Star when we were you. We were stronger, faster, not to mention magically protected from harm. I can't do the things you could, not without Star!"

"Yes, true. And it eats at us, doesn't it?"

Jackie had no answer. No honest retort.

"It eats at us that whatever we are is either a foolish dumb girl with a skateboard, or just whatever Star lets us be," Prince Jack smirked. "You know, like how she lets you play at being Marco's girlfriend too?"

"What?! Hey, wait a minute! I was Marco's girlfriend before Star," Jackie protested. Feeling foolish for arguing with herself, specially about something like this. She felt like she was crazy just for having this conversation. Perhaps she was. "I mean, I opened the relationship to her, because I knew Marco liked her and she liked him too, but none of us are pretending anything. We are both Marco's girlfriends, and it was mostly my doing... or, you know, our doing... ugh... this is so confusing!"

Prince Jack walked around her, sword still drawn.

"Oh, yeah, right! How noble of us!" she scoffed. "Listen, we both know they would have ended together, sooner rather than later. You know that, right now, if he had to choose, he would choose her. You know it because: He. Told. Us. So."

Jackie looked down, it was hard arguing with herself, unfortunately.

"And we both saw what Star did, right? And Marco still defended her! 'Oh, she is going through some really harsh stuff. I'll try to talk to her tomorrow.' She cheats on him, and yet he would still rather have her than you!"

"That's not how it went! We both agreed Star is not herself these days! That what she did was shitty, really shitty, but that is better to ask why she did it, given what she is going through. And seriously, we are in some sort of hellish night-stop with an immortal sadist, forced to play some bizarre role-playing game we only half understand, and being pursued by a glowing horror of green fire who killed her mom!" Jackie yelled back at the golden prince. "Honestly, focusing on this type of drama only makes us kind of petty, dude."

"You said it, not me." Prince Jack grinned. "But we do care. We care a whole lot. Or else, I wouldn't be here, reminding you about it. We care about this, and about her spying on us, and about the fact that despite it all, if Marco had to choose..."

"But he doesn't have to choose!" she cut him off, annoyed. "We made it so he didn't have to choose, back when we opened the relationship. We... we could as easily not have pushed him to date Star in the first place... but, but, I didn't want him to... we didn't want him to... well, to not have that..."

"What, you are asking for a cookie for not getting in the way? Like you even could!" Prince Jack scoffed. "Face it, Marco and Star were going to end together whether you opened up the relationship or not. And we knew it. That's why we did it! It was not an act of selfness but of self-preservation."

No! That wasn't right. Was it? She had told him to date Star for him, no? Because she wanted Marco to be as happy as he could be, to share in on the happiness!

"You know, Jackie? Normal people accept when their crush doesn't like them back, or doesn't like them anymore," Prince Jack spoke softly, putting a firm compassionate hand on Jackie's shoulder. "They don't do this whole 'sharing in on their happiness' thing. Are you sure is not an act? A psychological defence mechanism? It's not yours to share anyways. Frankly... it's kinda creepy."

Was that it? Truly? Was that all her feelings were about, when looked at with cold detachment? A response to feeling not good enough? Insecurity masquerading as selflessness?

"No, no, I don't accept that!" Slave Jackie spoke. "I am happy that Marco likes Star. I genuinely truly feel that way. And yes, I would be sad if he didn't like me anymore, or didn't want to be with me anymore. But how much he likes Star and how much he likes me are two separate things! I can be happy about one, at the same time I am worried about the other. I can have gripes about some of the things Star does, and some of the things Marco says, without hating either of them, nor hating the way they love each other! It doesn't mean that I was wrong to open up the relationship. This is who I am, how I chose to love. Not just Marco, but anyone whom I might love in the future. And yes, his happiness is mine to share... for as long as he wishes to share it with me!"

She tried to stand up then, and noticed the crushing force of her counterpart's hand on her shoulder. She looked up. Prince Jack was still smiling, but his was a nasty cruel grin. He was still in armor, but it was black now, rather than golden, with pointed spikes sprouting from the dark metal. He was wearing not his own outfit, but that of Princess White.

"Sure, girl, keep telling yourself that," Jack mocked her. She heard her own shoulder bone cracking. "You can pretend you are OK with them, that what you have now is all you ever wanted. But the reality is you wanted to win, you wanted to be the one that mattered the most. You are just lying to yourself. Masking insecurity as some noble code of ethics! You are no knight in shining armor. You are a farce and a wreck! You simply don't fully realize it yet! Tomorrow, you'll learn to see things my way..."

\----

Jackie woke up then, crying. She looked up to see Marco. He was also weeping, quietly, as he leaned against the cell's stone wall. Neither said a word as they hugged, hesitantly. Eventually, they fell again into an uneasy but dreamless sleep.

\----

Janna did not sleep that night. She hardly had gotten any sleep last night, either. 

Turns out that when a horror of darkness and flame makes an attempt on your life, you are likely to feel somewhat jumpy for a time. It actually surprised her a smidgen that none of her friends had thought to check up on her regarding that. But she supposed that they all had their own traumas from that night, and their own concerns about the path ahead.

The witch knew she was 'safe' in Sam's palace, as safe from any other threat as she was likely to be anywhere in the multiverse, and yet, she couldn't fall asleep. She was tired, and she was cranky, and she was mad at one particular mewman princess above all else. She was mad at Tom too, and mad at herself. But, well, first of all: Star.

The girl needed to put her thoughts in order. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours. 

She jumped down from her mid-air lotus sitting position, wrapped her blood-stained cloak around herself, and headed out of the lonely room she had been left in. The whole place was a horror show, and yet, compared to the night before, she would almost describe her current situation as cozy. If not for the overwhelming rage, of course.

She was mad at Star, truly mad, since yesterday's night. Mad, not jealous. There was a difference. She had been jealous - envious, technically - for much longer, and that part was not really Star's fault. She got that it was not the princess fault now, now that she remembered the truth. But, regardless of that, after the attack of "will, unbending", she was mad, fully and throughly furious. Rightly so, as far as she could tell! 

She had let Star know that she was mad at her as soon as the episode ended. Janna had spoken even as the princess held the unresponsive body of Tom in her arms.

"Star! What in the name of all that's unholy was that thing?!" she had shouted at the mewman, almost twenty-four hours ago.

As she remembered the words, Janna's body tensed. She began walking faster and faster, along the twisting corridors of Sam's infernal palace.

Star had struggled to explain herself, back then. Mostly, she'd defaulted to say that she wasn't sure. It eventually came out she had apparently been seeing those evil green ghosts for a week, and yet neglected to tell anyone! Then, of course, one of those things eventually tried to kill her friends, because, well duh! Namely, it went after Janna herself.

Star had, in her defense, noted that Janna had called her for help, and that she had come, and that Janna would be dead if not for her, and why wasn't she thankful? To which the witch had retorted that she would not have been in danger if not for Star in the first place, that both her and Tom almost did truly not make it out alive, and that, in the end, it had been Tom and not Star who defeated the threat. Apparently, whatever that thing was, it was after Star to begin with. But, at the same time, it wouldn't hurt her, only her friends... which was great, really fucking great. Thank you oh so very much, Star!

Janna begun walking down a long set of stairs then. All along were floating black candles, the flames burning at the end were ocean blue, and permanently formed into the shapes of ghostly human skulls.

The princess had even brought up Midra'Apep last night. The snake monster had indeed been Janna's fault and had, like Star's green fire ghost, threatened the lives of others. Which ok, that was a fair point, but is not like Janna sat on the information for weeks, and not like she didn't apologize about it many many times since! The thing yesterday, at any rate, was way more terrifying than any giant snake. They were, quite frankly, past making the mistake of not letting each other know about that kind of trouble.

Eventually, the whole argument had all degenerated into a shouting match. Star brought up her dead mom, and when Janna pointed out that was not really an argument, she just threw a fit, climbed up the top of Tom's hearse and left the rest of them to deal with the fallout from her decisions, as usual. Star had, not too long ago, been her friend, and she was Marco's and Jackie's still. But it really rubbed Janna the wrong way how the princess seemed to assume friendship automatically implied that they should all risk their damn lives to help her get revenge for her dead mother!

The stairs ended, flowing out to a huge ballroom. It was outfitted with twelve long tables along the walls and a large empty space in the middle. The floor was a mosaic of marble and obsidian, representing scenes from a fight between winged beings. Angels and demons, it would seem, although some of the angels were depicted stabbing one another.

Tom had followed suit on that whole "risk his life for her sake" deal, because he loved Star. He would love Star until she really did kill him. Meanwhile, Janna was just this... toy that he used to pass the time. I mean, wasn't that their original deal? Maybe it was Janna's fault for not waking up sooner, and getting the here away from him, and from Star, both. She sighed.

Janna always considered herself to be very much not a moron when it came to understanding other people's hidden motives, their true thoughts behind whatever lies they told themselves. But she suspected that, given the available evidence - that Tom had left their mutual room at 9pm, looking for Star, and that he was very much still not back by 4am - even a bona fide moron would figure out what had happened. If they hadn't slept together, and they most likely had, they had at least gone to sleep together. A betrayal either way, as far as she was concerned.

The dark haired girl sat down on one of the chairs along the huge tables, in the head position. To her side was a velvet curtain, covering a gargantuan window. In front of the curtain was a small desk, and atop it, a large ornate porcelain vase of marvelous craftsmanship. It was adorned in gold and meticulously painted.

Then, of course, there was Princess Snow-bloody-White, and that only complicated things.

That afternoon, on the way here, Marco had mentioned having missing memories, and that sort of... made Janna uncomfortable. It took her a moment to realize that there seemed to be a hole in her memories as well, right around the time her feelings about Star became the most spiteful. A hole that seemed to coincide with the hour or so that she had spent waiting for Tom and Star to have their little chat in St O's.

Earlier that same night, she had told Tom to leave her alone in the room for an hour or two. Partly, it had been to see what he did, to get it over with and done. He had been obsessing over Star since forever, bending over backwards to help her in her quest, going to Sam, despite his abject terror when it came to the older devil, all in order to help his dearest princess. And last night, Star had jumped to hold him between her arms. Honestly, Janna saw it coming a mile away, and the longer it took, the worse it was going to be for her.

But she had had a second motive for wanting Tom gone tonight in particular. She needed the quietness to go back into her own mind, to pull back what had been robbed from her: that hour of her memory. Eventually, she managed to recall the vampire's transparent deception, and her insidious comments.

Janna would love to say it was her newly found skill in magic that allowed her to recover those sealed memories. In truth, it had been a more mundane sort of magic, one she knew even before she met Tom: self-hypnosis. She had managed to put herself in a trance-like state, and, after some effort, break through the block the vampire had put in her mind. It had been a humiliating, and bothersome, revelation. Mostly because now she understood her mind had been warped to put her against Star.

And yet, by cold slow logic, she still arrived at the conclusion that Star had knowingly put Janna's own life in danger, that she and Tom were likely together now, in the middle of the night, and that she had reason enough to be mad at the princess with or without White's interference. The problem was separating how mad she was supposed to be, from how mad she felt given the old vampire's insidious mental suggestions. How much of her hate for Star was Janna's own, and how much had been forced on her?

Then again, White herself, or at least Janna's encounter with her, was also Star's fault. Hers, and that of Tom's unhealthy obsession with his royal ex. If they hadn't had to go to St O's to look for Star, the troublemaker girl would never had met the vampire princess. So why not add 'accidentally exposes friends to mind rape' to the list of charges against her former friend?

The evil princess had destroyed Janna's remaining friendship towards Star. But did that make her see the mewman's actions less or more clearly?

"Sam!" Janna finally shouted, tired of walking around looking for the devil, "I know you are everywhere around this place! Show yourself... please."

"Everywhere?" came the response immediately, and two bright gleaming stars appeared floating in mid air, on the other side of the table. Slowly, Sam's entire form emerged from the shadows, and those bright points became his blinding blue eyes. "You flatter me, J-flame. Omnipresence is part of a skill set somewhat beyond my own."

The witch made her best effort not to flinch as the devil manifested himself. Without answering just yet, Janna stood up, and walked slowly towards the nearby desk, as she pondered how to word her proposal.

She admired the vase atop said desk. It was a work of art, albeit one with terrifying implications: the edge was adorned in gold and the relief sculpted on the metal started abstract and geometric but, as it flowed down the length of the piece, those shapes turned into winged humanoid figures. Eventually, the gold stopped, and painted china showed a different set of figures, beautiful and angelic near the top, but becoming ever more twisted and monstrous as they fell down the length of the vase. Yet, near the very bottom, stood one final perfectly angelic winged form, receiving the fallen with open arms.

"A representation of the fall, and the likeness of the Morning Star," spoke Sam, following her gaze.

"Valuable?" Janna asked.

"Yes," Sam agreed. "And no. Like all else."

"Sam, can I ask a question?" she asked. "Does it violate your kind hospitality if I do so? Given it is a delicate question..."

She wasn't sure that she being out at this hour, or having called him like she did, didn't constitute a violation. But the fact that she was still alive seemed to hint that either it did not, or that the devil was waiting for an specific offense.

"You may ask all you like, J-flame," Sam conceded generously. "Tonight, albeit not tomorrow, and with no guarantee of a response, of course. There is a question I am somewhat curious about, myself, and I think we both know I'll see it answered soon."

"Did Tom and Star..." Janna begun. She felt like a little girl for even asking, for wanting confirmation.

"They did," Sam answered, with a smirk.

"How do I know..." she tried to find an out.

"I swear it," Sam shrugged. "On the name of the Brightest Light of the Morning, I swear your fears are the truth, and the two of them have known each other tonight once more, in a rather biblical sense. They did so of their own free will, and in whichever way I might have foreseen or facilitated it, as you did foresee and facilitate it as well, I did not force them to do so. Now, Janna, knowing this for a fact, will you do what you came down here to do?"

She ran a finger along the edge of the vase. Clearly, Sam was ahead of her, as always. It shouldn't even surprise her. "Don't you know already what I am going to do? Didn't you plan this from the start?"

Sam laughed at her unnerved, sleep-deprived, yet hardly unfounded, paranoia. "J-flame, you and old Tommy boy have qualms with this world mainly because things often fail to turn out the way you expect them to. My usual complain, instead, is the opposite. For me, they very rarely turn out otherwise. But I confess, I don't know for a fact whether or not you are going to break that vase," he pressed the tips of his fingers together, expectantly.

"If I do, what will happen?" Janna had to ask.

"Exactly what you suspect," Sam replied calmly. "I'll consider it a violation of my hospitality, and revoke my protection upon you all. After all, breaking my stuff was among the conditions you yourself named."

"Then?" Janna pressed on, putting just the slightest pressure on the vase.

"I'll do what you hope I'll do. I'll murder Star Butterfly," he smiled ever so slightly. It was a friendly smile, almost warm, and the contrast between the words and the casual tone in which they were spoken only made it worse.

Janna hesitated. Hearing it stated in such unvarnished words made her feel almost scared of herself. But well, she knew why she had asked, and Sam knew too, apparently. Her hand didn't leave the vase.

"And Tom?"

"I do consider Tom a friend, in as much as the concept makes sense given the difference between our natures," Sam remarked. "He will be angry, and I might have to... dissuade him. But he will survive this plot of yours."

Janna thought about asking about Marco and Jackie, but honestly, she was beyond caring. She also didn't really need to ask about herself, except... "Will you kill me before or after Star?"

After all, what was the point if she wouldn't live to see it? If she didn't get to watch?

Sam seemed to think for a moment. Janna knew it was most likely a ruse, but she still had to wait patiently for his response.

"J-flame, let us make this whole thing more interesting," Sam finally replied, in a cheerful tone. "I once promised to give you my fairest deal, and I shall do so once more: If you do this, I will not kill you. After Star dies, I'll send you and your other two mortal friends back home. I'll make it so they, and Tom as well, forget that she ever lived. All of you will be spared, all except the princess. You will be with Tom. But he will no longer have Star in his mind to compare you against. You will remember it all, or none of it, your choice."

'I'll give you everything you ever wanted, if you betray the friend that betrayed you, the one you already wish to enact revenge on, with all your heart,' was the offer, in essence. No catch. No one would know or remember. It would be between her and Sam, and if she ever felt bad about it, well, she could just as easily pretend to herself that Star had never existed in the first place, no one would contradict her. She could even get herself to forget doing this. Even her conscience would be none the wiser, if she so chose.

Janna didn't even need to ask the devil why he was willing to give her that offer. She was sure it would amuse him to see her be the one to condemn her former friend, to know how twisted she really was, when no one else was watching.

"Finally," Sam added, "know that I expect my hospitality to be breached, no matter what you do tonight, before midnight tomorrow. When that happens, my protection is gone. The rest of the offer, however, is only for this moment, and this specific transgression."

So, essentially, if she didn't do this, Star was almost certainly bound to die either way, and then, probably so was Janna herself. Strictly speaking, taking Sam's deal would lead to the best outcome for all. Janna would be saving Jackie and Marco, along with herself. Star was the one that had dragged them all to the mouth of the wolf, and she was doomed either way. By that logic, Janna was not only justified in her wish for revenge, she was actually being the hero.

Who was she kidding? That was a load of crap! It was not her real reason. It was not like she could not spot when she was lying to herself. Her wish in the matter was anything but noble, it was an ugly sick venomous thing, and yet...

She pressed further, and the bottom of the vase lifted from the wooden desk. She held onto the edge, as the whole thing came to balance on just a small corner of its base. She didn't even need to push now. If she simply let go, or if she tilted her grip slightly to the left or slightly to the right, the vase would tumble from its precarious perch. It would hit the ground, it would shatter, and soon after, so would Star.

Janna closed her eyes. The image of Star and Tom naked together, resting in bed, popped into her mind. But it wasn't really about Tom. It wasn't even about Star putting them all in danger, not if Janna was completely honest with herself. It was about power. 

The demon prince himself had sworn, long ago, that Janna would never be able to match Star's power. That Star would always win, not just in his heart but in the world at large. "You could spend your entire life practicing this sort of thing and you will never be able to call forth one tenth of the power Star could summon the second she got her magic wand. You are a regular human and she, well, she is something quite rare and quite extraordinary in this universe," had been his words.

Well, right now, in this instant, she could direct the course of powers greater than Star could comprehend. She could end her life, if she so wished! She could erase her memory from the minds of everyone! It was the most pure form of victory, the most definitive! She could win the contest that Tom had said she would never win!

Janna pushed, and let go. The worst part was, the witch knew she was smiling as she did it, genuinely looking forward to seeing her former friend dead.

The vase fell fast towards the ground... 3... 2...

It held in mid air. Slowly, it floated back up, until it was once more atop its previous resting spot in the small wooden desk. Gently, Janna let go of her levitation spell.

"Thanks for the kind offer, Sam, but, well, no deal," she frowned as she sat back into the table. She should have felt so much better about having done the right thing, about knowing this about herself. That she was capable of honor, even when no one would see or know it had been her. In reality, she didn't feel good about it. She had really considered going through with it. She knew Star, and now maybe all of them, might die tomorrow anyways, and the only consolation would be that she could claim it wasn't her fault. Still, maybe it meant something nonetheless. "Guess I am a better person than we both thought. Surprised?"

"J-flame, I have asked this question many many times before, and when I do, I really don't know the answer ahead of time. How could I? When you yourselves know not," Sam smirked, amused. "I have had those who took the deal, and I have had those who refused. A thousand times each. Neither answer is much of a surprise anymore, and neither ever changes anything of consequence, of course, but I'll take whatever little amusement I can get. Refusing makes you no particularly noble, acceding doesn't make you that much more villainous than just getting to the point of asking the question. But if you wish to think highly of yourself for this, then go ahead, it makes no difference to me."

The girl frowned. Sam was right, of course. The fact that she considered doing a horrible deed and then decided in the last minute not to... well, it hardly made her a paragon of virtue. Then again, what would Star have done, if the roles had been reversed? If revenge for her mother's death had been on the table as well? What would Tom have said, about trading Janna's death for Star's unconditional love?

"Is there a deal you can offer by which we all make it out of here unharmed?" Janna had to ask.

"You have it already," Sam retorted. "Stick to my hospitality, and I will not, cannot, harm you."

"But you expect we will fail to do so?" she asked.

"Yes."

Janna sat there, in silence. She glanced back at the vase, at the depiction of the fall. Was Sam there? Among the angels, or among the monsters? Or was he something else altogether?

"J-flame," Sam interrupted her thoughts. "There is another deal we could strike, unrelated to the fate of your friends, or Star."

She knew she shouldn't ask, but she did, "What deal?"

"Well, you want power, do you not?" he asked in return. "Power to match that of Star? And you can no longer rely on Tom to draw your magics from, amusing as your methods might have been to you, before."

He paused for an instant, letting her ponder his words.

"What if I could find you an... alternative source? One all of your own?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: If anyone is following this fic at this point, but hasn't read [A Habit Hard to Break](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9982967). Well, I do recommend that fic to anyone reading SvtFoE fics, but before you do, if you have a chance, please hop in the comments and let me know if the Marco flashbacks are still possible to follow without having read Habit? Not in the sense of catching every little reference (they are chock-full with references to that fic) but in the sense of getting the gist of what is happening and being at least as fun to read as the non-flashback scenes. If not, any details on what parts are too cryptic would be very appreciated.
> 
> **Coming up next** : _Chapter 25: Always a Charade_  
>  _In which Sam's party takes place, masks must be worn at all costs, and the show, as they say, must go on, despite it all._


	25. Always a Charade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sam's party takes place, masks must be worn at all costs, and the show, as they say, must go on, despite it all.

"Dear devils, esteemed gentlefiends, I bid you welcome to my humble home," boomed Sam's voice through the grand ballroom. He didn't appear to raise his tone, nor put any effort into talking louder or more forcefully than usual, yet the speech carried strong to each corner of the huge room. "It is my honor and my pleasure to have each and everyone of you in attendance this evening."

Tom looked around him, at the crowd gathered inside the ancient devil's palace. They had been slowly marching into the place since as early as five in the afternoon. By now, there was barely enough space in the room to hold them. It was a bizarre and intimidating congregation: demon kings and queens, masters over domains at least as vast as those of his own parents, and often far grander, sat along the twelve long tables by the walls. They were wearing an assortment of costumes. Most fit their wearer at least somewhat: giant flame demons in medieval armor, tentacled inhuman horrors in long black cloaks, etc. Orcus, in all his sickening bulk, sat naked, while two masked succubi catered to his every whim. Her augustness, She-Who-Invites, to whom most gave almost as much of a wide berth as they did Sam himself, was wearing a simple shinto shrine maiden robe, white and red. If anyone had gotten to choose their own costume, it was her, but hers was power beyond the need for ostentatiousness.

On the other hand, there were also many others whose disguises seemed far less probable. An ancient lich wore a jester outfit. Mirage, The Great Deceiver, was dressed as a countryside priest. One of the Balrog lords wore the garbs of a medieval doctor. Princess Nephafel was dressed in an elementary school girl uniform, and looked utterly pissed at the fact. Under different circumstances, Tom would be delighted to see her annoyed so. But he was far too worried about what Sam's game might be, and about what had happened last night. Hopefully she hadn't seen him yet.

The dance floor was illuminated by a veritable galaxy of floating spheres of bright blue flame, high along the vault of the room, and by the shaky red glow of fire rising through the open windows. Standing on the marble and obsidian floor, whose mosaic represented the first of all wars, stood most of the attendants, those not important enough to get a seat by default. Apparently, that included Tom himself, despite his princely title, which meant Star and the three humans were also among that crowd, somewhere. 

"As you all know, there are a few ground rules for this party. I am sure all of you will do your best to abide by them," Sam continued. "First, none is to leave before midnight. I shall make another announcement then." 

It was seven now. Perhaps, if they held for five more hours, they would at least be allowed to retreat to their rooms and wait there, without that being in violation of their deal with Sam. 

"Second, you must wear your costumes at all times, and represent your assigned persona to the best of your abilities," the devil commanded. "If your card said courtesan, then you must whore; if it said assassin, then thou shall kill; and so on, and so forth..."

Certainly a large number of demons were dressed as prostitutes, particularly among those standing, and an even larger number looked like dangerous killers. Then again, in the later case, sometimes it was hard teasing the disguise apart from the fact that they were indeed murderous fiends of the worst kind, by nature as well as nurture. Tom wondered what would be required from his own role as a scoundrel.

"... as for me," Sam paused for a moment, "Until the clock strikes twelve, I shall be but a humble servant."

The blue fires of his eyes suddenly went out. His blindingly golden hair faded into coal black. Two curled goat horns sprouted from his skull, and the marble white of his skin became a more muted pearl color. A black tux appeared atop his now frail thin body: a waiter's uniform.

It was Adorjan.

Sam had become an identical copy of the head of staff at The Faust. The same old waiter that had attended Tom and Janna on their first date, and had served the demon prince at the underworld restaurant within his family lands for centuries. Tom looked up, and saw the old goat demon smile back at him. No, not a copy. Sam had been Adorjan before, he had been Adorjan that night, he had perhaps always been Adorjan. Another charade from the bored lord of Dis. A chill went up the demon prince's spine.

Before Tom could recover from the surprise, Adorjan - no, Sam - continued his address. "And one more thing, a final detail for all my honored guests to keep in mind..."

A spotlight shone over Tom, and he saw, among the crowd, four other spotlights come up in the middle of the marble and obsidian floor. He couldn't see the people they illuminated, but was sure those sitting around the room had a better view. He also knew that, if he were able to see past the sea of hats, wigs, horns, skulls, and twisting bodies, he would see those lights trained on Star, Janna, Jackie, and Marco.

"... the Prince Lucitor and his mortal friends are under my personal protection. No harm will come to them by any hand other than my own, and I will stay my hand, if they follow the rules," the devil concluded. "Now, with that said, please, enjoy your evening! Make sure to play your roles. I'll be playing mine."

Tom wasn't sure if Sam had done them a favor by announcing his protection, or painted a target on their backs by hinting that they would be punished for a violation of protocol. Knowing who it was, the demon prince had to suspect the later was the true intent. Either way, Tom had someone he needed to talk to.

"Thomas, darling, glad to finally see you attend one of this things," spoke a voice behind him. He meant someone else. Hell, come to think about it, he meant anyone else!

"Hi Neph," he replied. "Sorry, there is something I need to do. Perhaps we could catch up later?" Or, you know, never.

Nephafel smiled at him; a broad smile, one showing three rows of pointed razor-sharp teeth. The rest of her looked almost human, if you were willing to ignore the two bat wings behind her back and the pale lavender color of her demonic skin. Her black hair was tied into two piggy tails, but that was probably only for the dumb schoolgirl costume. She usually wore it down.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Marco and Jackie through the crowd. The boy was hurrying to move between his chain-bound girlfriend and an angry looking slime demon. The creature seemed to be pointing at the trail behind him, as it tried to shove a half-soiled rag at the human girl. It desisted, however, as soon as Marco pulled out his iron sword. That was slime demons for you in a nutshell, all bark and nauseating breath, but no real bite at all. Neph, unfortunately, was another matter. She did bite. Tom knew that from experience.

"But Thomas, it has been so very long," she pouted. Her bright red eyes followed his, finding the two humans. "Oh, so it is true, then? You are bringing mortals here?! Whatever for? Food? No, it can't be, I remember you being quite squeamish..."

"Friends," Tom corrected her. "Not that you would know the meaning of the word..."

Nephafel was not the most evil being Tom knew, but she was, without a doubt the worst person: petty, scheming, volatile, and utterly selfish. She had been as much of a bad influence in his life as Star and her friends had been a positive one. Which, alright, didn't make him or the mewman a well-behaved pair. But, by comparison...

"Friends?" the demon princess laughed. She glanced pointedly to the side. Tom followed her eyes to find Star. 

The other princess was standing in line for drinks. She seemed to be yelling something at a pair of demons, no doubt fulfilling her assigned role as she bullied her way through the queue. Before Tom could make an excuse to head that way, Nephafel lifted her hand and ran her fingers through his neck, slowly caressing his rose tattoo. A rose, like Star's transformed cheek marks. A fact that was not lost on the demoness at all.

"Oh, Thomas, I think I know all about being 'friends' like that. I taught you all about being... friendly, if I remember correctly," she mussed, running a long red tongue through her inhuman teeth. "But mortals? Well, that's a new one! Didn't think you'd have it in you, Thomas, darling! You were never that adventurous when we were dating..."

Dating was a weird way to describe what they used to do. Tom had danced with Nephafel at a few underworld balls before, and, well, a few times one thing led to another. But he couldn't trust her, they had never been friends, and certainly not boyfriend and girlfriend. He hadn't seen her in almost one hundred years. She was just, a series of bad decisions. Bad decisions... like last night.

"Nephafel, I..." Tom tried to extract himself out of the situation.

Suddenly, he noticed Adorjan, Sam, walking their way. He carried a plate of eyes and crackers on one hand, and a long red napkin in the other. His expression was the utterly unreadable mask of professionalism Tom had come to associate with the servant, before he knew who he truly was.

"Pardon me, sir, madam," he interjected, with a deep servile bow. Tom had a brief moment of gratification when he saw that Nephafel was even more unnerved by Sam's act then he was. She flinched. The endless shadow, one of the greatest powers in all of the hells, was serving them snacks. His next words, however, reversed the feeling, causing Tom to frown and the demon princess to grin. "I couldn't help but overhearing. It would seem to me, though it is certainly not my place to judge, that a young girl being so forward and a true scoundrel being shy is not how this particular encounter should play out. Certainly I can't imagine either of you would risk breaking character, especially not the Prince Lucitor..."

Tom sighed. 'Play your part, play your part or she dies', and he didn't mean Neph. He took a cracker from the plate Sam was offering, and ate it as he thought of his next move. It was admittedly somewhat viscous, but quite tasty.

"There are many things that you don't know about me, kid," he emphasized the last word, savoring Nephafel's look of irritation. She was technically his elder by almost a full thousand years. By demonic generations, they were peers. But him treating her like a child was a reversal of their usual dynamic. She usually presented herself as the more worldly of the two. "I am looking to chat with some ladies tonight, not change anyone's diapers, so get lost!"

Actually, being in character wasn't going to be half bad.

"Aww, but siiir," she insisted in an exaggeratedly high-pitched voice. "All I want is one little dance. I can make it worth your while. Pretty please!"

She drew a finger to her mouth and sucked on it. Then, she tripped forward, or pretended to do so, and fell into Tom's arms. By reflex, he caught her, just in time to see her smirk triumphantly.

With uncanny strength, the demon princess grabbed him by both arms and begun forcing Tom to dance, pulling him in reverse through the motions, pretending to follow but leading him on the sly. He could drop her now, if he truly tried, but not without revealing she had dragged him along. Would that be breaking character? For a few moments, he was forced into the awkward dance. He eventually began leading her normally, as an alternative to being moved around like a rag doll. She relaxed her grip, but only slightly, when she thought he was no longer immediately planning to free himself.

They did a turn and then, behind Nephafel, Tom saw a girl in a black bloodied cloak staring at them: Janna. Her gaze was one of pure contempt, tinged with disappointment.

"Sorry, kid, but my date is here," he forced himself to give an in-character reason. Then, summoning all of his own strength, he managed to extract himself from the other demon's grip. Before Nephafel could react, he ran towards Janna. 

As he did, the witch retreated into the crowd. He pursued.

"Janna, wait! It's not what you think!" he shouted. It was something a scoundrel would say too, so it was fine to shout it in public. Except, unlike the role he was meant to play, Tom really did mean it.

"And what do I think it was?" Janna's question came from his left. He turned quickly, to see her right in front of him. It was strange, he never noticed her doubling back towards him.

"I... I don't know," Tom admitted. "But Neph is just an old pain in the ass, ok? I just couldn't get rid of her."

"Well," Janna observed. "Didn't seem that hard once you really tried. Maybe there is a lesson in there for me..." she mussed.

"Wait, what?!" Tom asked, surprised, not sure he understood what the human girl meant. "She was forcing me to dance, really, that was nothing..."

"I saw that," Janna shrugged. "I don't give a rat ass about her. But tell me, yesterday... was that nothing? Star... was she forcing you too?"

"Wait! You know?!" Tom went pale. 

Janna's eyes narrowed.

"That's your reaction? Seriously?! Surprise that I found out?!" the troublemaker girl shook her head in disbelief. "I am not sure which is worse, Tom: what you two did, the fact that you would have been ok with keeping that a secret from me, or that you think I am so much of an idiot that you could ever have!"

Tom felt anger rise within him. He wasn't going to be berated like this. After all, it was not like he and the girl ever agreed they were going steady or anything of the sort. Actually, him getting it on with Star had been the plan from the beginning; her plan. "Janna, wait a minute! That was our deal! Remember? You knew I wanted Star. You said you would help me get her, right? That we would be dating until I had a chance to get Star back!"

"Right..." Janna replied, coldly. Around them, the crowd started parting, a lot of eyes on them. "... yes, I did say that."

"And ok, maybe along the way it became a little bit more than that," Tom explained. "A lot more than that, ok? But is not like I ever promised you anything different, is it? You knew what the deal was! You set those terms! I did nothing wrong!"

"Ok, sure, Tom, you are absolutely right! You did exactly what you promised! What you always wanted!" she shouted. Her fists were clenched. There was something in her left index finger. Blood? A cut? No, not quite, it looked like the tattoo of a ring, except only half of the way around, like a crescent moon. "Congratulations then! Mission fucking accomplished! Hope it was worth it... because you are right, you don't owe me shit. The thing is, that one goes both ways, Tom... I also don't owe you a damn thing." 

She took a deep breath.

"You know? The funny thing is that, maybe, if that had been the first thing you told me, that our deal had worked, well, I wouldn't be happy, perhaps, but I could understand," she added. "But that's not what happened. You were fine with keeping me in the dark, if you could. That doesn't make me a partner in a scheme, fucked up and outdated as that scheme might have been... It makes me the goddamn mark! That's not a role I'll accept, Tom. I am done with you. And you know what? I think so is Star."

Sam was right, the costume fit. It seemed playing his part had been no challenge at all.

Janna turned around. Tom felt sick. He hadn't realized it, but what he had said before was true, his relationship with Janna had become a lot more than a game for him long ago. It wasn't the last thing she said that was the most hurtful, even if she meant it to be. He was fine with Star not being his, he was fine with it having only been a one night thing. But this, this he didn't want. It was not the trade he'd meant to make. Once more, he'd messed up, badly.

"Janna, wait! I am s..."

But she was no longer there. In an instant, Janna's cloaked figure had become translucent, and then dissolved like a fading shadow. Tom blinked. She had probably displaced herself to somewhere else within the room, or had made herself invisible. She was far too smart to leave and let Sam win that way. Either way, Tom didn't think she could do something like that yet. Hell, he didn't think she would master magics like those for another fifty years, if ever. He himself couldn't do that outside of his own domain. He didn't know if Star could. More strangely, he hadn't felt her taking the necessary power from him. The other guests, perhaps? It was an extraordinarily magically saturated environment, after all.

In any case, Janna had vanished, and whether she was still in the room or not, Tom knew that searching for her would be futile.

\----

Well, it was a hell of a crowd. And yet, in a way, it was tamer than Star had imagined it to be. Yes, ok, there were a few naked demons wearing carnival masks, of at least two different genders, and not always a single one each. And yes, some of them had rather extreme anatomies, and a handful were even making use of them in ways that she dared not observe for long. But honestly, she had sort of expected that to be a lot more common given that it was hell and Tom had described Sam's parties as 'intense' even by infernal standards. And ok, sure, there was a huge hairy creature laying in a pool of blood in the corner of the dance room, probably because somebody was doing good on one of those assassin roles. But, then again, that also happened with some regularity at Star's family reunions. By and large, most attendants were dressed as if for a normal costume party, more Halloween Night than "demonic orgy of sin and debauchery".

Not saying she was disappointed or anything, it was a good thing that this didn't live up to her worst nightmares. But, still, she had expected to be more shocked.

"Out of my way, you imbecile!" she commanded once more, and a huge stone gargoyle in chains moved to let her finally get to the drinks. 

She smiled. It was part of staying in costume after all, nothing she could do about it. She had to do it anyways to remain on Sam's good side. Her gown didn't particularly fill her with a sense of kindness towards those beneath, so being too polite might actually have been dangerous to her and her friends. And well, if she really had to be bad, if there was no choice in the matter, well, she might as well enjoy it. Guilt was overrated, after all.

"Hey, Star, there you are!" shouted Marco, walking towards her in long strides. He was frowning.

Behind him, Jackie shuffled painfully, dragging her own chains behind, looking down. Every so often, Marco glanced back at some of the patrons looking the human girl's way, and gave them a quick peek at the blade of his otherwise sheathed sword. His expression was that of someone not to mess with. Although Star assumed it was mostly the effect of the Champion costume, she couldn't avoid thinking that Marco was throughly pissed at her in particular, when his eyes met hers.

Star gulped. It was hard seeing Marco right now, after last night, particularly when he held so much fire in his gaze. It made her feel... that one emotion that was pointless. She would have to tell them about last night, sooner or later, it was the right thing to do. But now it was not the time. How could she apologize to him and Jackie, and still keep her role? How could they say their piece, and still keep theirs?

Well, if either way she had to fix it later, then what was the point in agonizing about it? Better not to tell them just yet, and not let pointless guilt show.

"Hey Marco, Jackie! Want any drinks?" she smiled at them. Then, lowering her voice to a whisper. "All going well with, you know, the slave bullshit? Anything I can do to help?"

"I...," Marco begun replying. Jackie just nodded. "We are managing. My role helps. I think the really scary ones heard Sam and are not getting themselves involved in his game, and the rest back off when threatened."

"Good, good... well, let me know if you need help with the threats..." Star mussed. She downed a glass of some red liquid she had first assumed was wine. It didn't taste like grapes, or alcoholic. It just tasted sort of metallic. Ugh. Not pleasant at all.

"But, Star, there is something we wanted to ask..." he begun.

"Does it need to be now?" Star interrupted him. There was a lot she needed to talk to them about. Not only last night, but also her dream, and what she had decided because of it. But, right now, "We need to be careful, Marco. Our roles..."

"But, Star, it is important..." Marco insisted. Star sighed, exasperated. She knew the costume was influencing her, but well, didn't Marco get it? They literally couldn't have an honest conversation right now!

A three headed cyclops, with a single eye in the middle head and huge foaming circular maws occupying the entirety of the other two, stumbled onto the edge of the small table. A dozen glasses fell to the ground, breaking and spilling their contents. The monster grunted. The left head bellowed, baring its sharp knife-long fangs as it spoke, "You! Slave girl! Clean this mess!"

Marco began to move his hand towards the sword, but Jackie pulled at his arm, and shook her head. She whispered something into Marco's ear. Then moved towards the table and grabbed a large cotton napkin. She knelt to the floor, with some trouble due to the shackles around her feet, and begun to clean. The three headed creature nodded satisfied and began stumbling away.

"Why?" Star asked Marco.

"She said," the boy muttered, angrily gritting his teeth. "She said that we all have to play our roles at least somewhat, and that this was an easy one to tackle. She also said you have to play yours."

"So, then you understand why I can't talk to you right now, right, Marco?" she had intended it to be apologetic. But the tone came out a haughty sneer. 

Something was going on with them tonight, with the costumes. Were the instincts embedded in their magics stronger during the party? Or was this just the effect of wearing them for so long? Or simply how well they aligned with their current mental state?

"Ok, fine. I know you can't explain now, _Lady_ Star," he highlighted the title, addressing her as a countess, albeit using the wrong part of her name. He was making a point of talking to her not as a princess, and definitely not as his girlfriend or his best friend. "But, just so you know: We know. About Tom, I mean."

Star's eyes went wide. They knew? How? Why? Oh, right... the link! Marco must have seen her. Oh god! Marco had seen her, her and Tom!

"Marco, I am so..." she begun, not worrying about what the damn dress was telling her to do.

"Ahem," she heard Sam cough behind her. Star turned around to see him smiling, in his new goat-like appearance, silently offering her another glass of whatever the hell it was. Blood, probably.

She sighed, and glared at him, which luckily was perfectly in character. The devil kept toying with them. It would have been the easiest thing for him to let them fail this little charade then and there, but he had stopped her from breaking her role, at the cost of forcing her to do something she didn't want to do.

She addressed Marco. "I believe we can discuss this another time. For now, the party must go on, and I'd rather be on my own. I believe that would be the best for all of us."

She tried to convey, with her eyes, what she would have said if she was free to speak her mind. That she was sorry. That it had been a mistake. The she understood if it meant the end. But that right now, their lives were at stake, and that the longer they remained around one another, the higher the chance that all their masks would crumble.

He seemed hurt, but he nodded right back in understanding. He and Jackie begun walking away from her. It hurt, a lot. Well, better get used to that, because once their three nights at Sam's place were done, she planned to send them both away, permanently.

Sam had said it himself, in the dream, if it had truly been a dream: feeling guilty was useless. If all she could do was to keep hurting them, to keep putting them in danger, then feeling bad after the fact didn't help. She needed them to go back to Earth, to leave her alone, for their own good. In a way, the Tom thing should make it much easier. If Marco and Jackie hated her for it, then it would be easier to convince them to turn back, to let her take the rest of the road alone. Still, she felt... irritated. Yeah, let's go with irritated.

"So, you are Thomas new 'friend'?" said an even more irritating voice. It belonged to this winged lavender-skinned demon in a school girl uniform, with more teeth than fucking Toffee crossed with a hair comb. "Can you spell downgrade?"

Star scoffed. Trying to ignore the stranger. She didn't seem like a threat, and the least people she talked to at this party, the least chances she had to break their stupid deal with Sam.

"The name is Nephafel, by the way, Princess Nephafel Gibborim," she kept at it. "A bow is preferred, but a scream of terror would be fine too. Maybe Thomas mentioned me? I am her ex. I mean, his original ex."

Star smirked, and answered truthfully "He never said a word about you."

"Oh, well," Nephafel shrugged. "He should have!"

She jumped at Star then, the middle finger of her right hand extending until it was as long as a spear. Its sharp tip lounged towards Star's chest.

It hit a solid barrier of bright violet magical energy.

"Ugh," the demoness exclaimed. "Sam's protection?"

"No," Star corrected her. Pulling her wand from inside her purple gown. "My own. Just like this..."

She took aim.

"GLOWING DARKNESS HELLBLAST!" she shouted. A thin beam of blinding violet light emerged from it. It hit the demon princess' leg.

Star smiled as Nephafel yelled in pain. This was just what she needed after that exchange with Marco, after the decision that had hatched inside her heart. If all she was meant to do was hurt, then she would hurt those who deserved it. She smelled the demon girl's flesh burning as the beam continued steady out of her wand, piecing all the way through skin, muscle, and bone. Slowly, she moved it further and further up the limb.

"Wait! What are you doing?" Nephafel cried. "You... you can't do this! You are bound by Sam's hospitality, those are the rules! Argh!"

"Oh, but I am following the rules," Star observed. "I am just playing my role. You should have asked what it was, I think, before you tried to attack me. Turns out that, tonight, I have to pretend to be the kind of bitch you probably are..."

Internally, Star was surprised at her own words. At the same time, saying that felt better than she cared to admit. Star had never craved power over others, the amount she had by virtue of her birth was burden enough already. But this act let her feel in control of herself, of her own pain, able to direct it intentionally against a foe rather than having it explode around her friends. It was also a much needed victory, after her defeat against her mom's killer, and her feelings of impotence when it came to dealing with Sam's games.

She looked around, most of the other guests were looking at the two of them indifferently. In fact, there were three or four other fights in progress around them, along with at least five separate ongoing sexual acts, and a dozen other events that would normally count as extreme displays of one sort or another. Yet, the vast majority of the people dancing or talking paid no attention. Sam himself was elsewhere, carrying a few larger trays of food and placing them on the tables around them. He was whistling.

Her beam reached past the girl's knee and Star begun to grow bored with her screams. With a swift movement, she cut horizontally, severing the leg at that height and cauterizing the wound in one shot. "Fine, that was enough. You can go now. I meant it when I said I have never heard of you before, and I better not hear of you again. Deal? Bye!"

Nephafel scrambled away on all three. If she was anything like Tom, her leg would grow again. But either way, it was not Star's problem. The demon princess had tried to kill her, after all. She deserved it, and it had been... relaxing. 

\----

Jackie's first visit to Tom's hell, and her meeting with the green ghost of Queen Moon, had been humbling and violent. The road to Sam's place had been eerie and haunting. As she tried to fall asleep last night, she had heard the screams outside in the night: blood-curling howls from the burning city below. She had also met their host yesterday, who in theory was the scariest thing around, and she had no trouble believing that claim, despite his occasional fake playfulness. She had faced all that with her chin held high. Yet, now, she was truly terrified.

The room was full of bizarre inchoate monstrosities, animated corpses, and huge red winged demons. There was a two-and-a-half meters tall walking skeleton in a harlequin dress that seemed to lower the room temperature a full five degrees all around it wherever it went. The snacks were eyes, the drinks seemed to be blood. A fat red demon with goat legs and a goat skull for a face, was sitting on a huge chair, jerking himself off, while two winged demon ladies in carnival masks danced in front of him. There was the corpse of something that looked like a four-horned minotaur sprawled on a corner, and she could have sworn he had been alive when the party started. How was nobody else unnerved by this? How could Star and Marco still act so... so... so unfazed?

The worst part, was the way some of the nightmarish creatures looked at her, at her small form dragging chains around. In some eyes, she saw lust, and that was chilling enough. But the appetites she saw on some of the inhuman eyes that followed her made her sick to her core. She could tell who wanted to hurt her, and who wanted to eat her like a pig or a chicken, and who wanted to break her so thoroughly that death would be a welcome release. Somehow, she knew. And she knew that if they asked, she would feel the need to obey.

Most of the guests simply treated her like a servant, asking her to clean things of fetch them food. She tried to do those tasks, to keep her role as best she could. It helped that she truly felt good serving, felt useful. A voice in her mind recoiled at the idea, yelled at her that it was wrong, humiliating. But as a practical matter, she was ok with handling the easy stuff. Whenever any of the fiends asked for something more, she relied on Marco to keep them at bay. Some of the requests were gross, or dangerous, and a few were of a disturbingly sexual nature. Those were handled by the boy, with a stern look and a glimpse of an iron edge.

She was surprised, and a bit awed, that Marco had turned such an effective bodyguard. Sam's announcement that they were under his protection, and the fact that Star had apparently mutilated someone earlier that night, certainly helped make the creatures around them take the human boy seriously. But it also helped that it didn't feel like a bluff. He seemed genuinely fearless, and ready to exact bloody violence on anyone or anything that didn't back down from his irate glare.

At first, she had felt worried that something wasn't right. That wasn't how Marco acted, not even how he had acted last night. Jackie was grateful for him keeping guard over her, but at the same time couldn't help but feel unnerved by his behavior. He seemed different, rougher, angrier. It was not like him: Marco was thoughtful, and analytical, and not the least bit likely to strut around playing Conan the Barbarian in a room full of demons, striding ahead as she followed him meekly shuffling in chains. If anything, Jackie was usually the more confident one, the one who was brave almost to the point of foolishness... sometimes way past it.

It dawned on her, earlier in the night, that she also wasn't acting like herself. She was following her role, dragging herself around like a broken person. Somehow, on some level, the roles they were meant to play were more than just disguises, something was messing with their minds. Anger rose within her, she stood a little bit higher, held a wolf beast's gaze with her own defiant one. And then, realizing the problem, looked back down towards the floor. 

Following her role was exactly what she needed to do. If she tried to be brave, she'd be breaking their deal with Sam. She had to let herself be cowed, be afraid, and let Marco (and Star) keep her safe. But was that just the logical choice? Or was that her role speaking? Or was it like Prince Jack had told her? That she was really, deep down, just that much of a coward?

As the hours ran by, she became more at ease with her temporary misfortune. More and more of the monsters learned what they would and wouldn't tolerate, which also meant less unreasonable requests. 

Still, she felt tired, and hungry. It was now past eleven, and she had not dared eat a thing from this infernal buffet. Marco had taken a few disgusted bites off a drumstick of meat that fortunately seemed too large to be human, but was also raw and bloody. She had not been quite as brave. Then again, a few more minutes, maybe just half-an-hour, and Sam would do his midnight address. After that, they'd leave the party and the nightmare would be mostly over. 

So far, it seemed like all five of them were holding their end of the bargain, including herself. Maybe she wasn't playing the role she would have wanted to play, but they were still winning, weren't they?

Deep in thought as she was, Jackie almost tripped on the dead body in front of her. 'Deader body', she supposed. It was a clean skeleton, devoid of flesh but wearing a bullfighter outfit. The bones themselves, however, were fractured and splintered, and there was no bright magical glow in the eyes of its cracked skull. An undead creature, rendered merely dead at a much more recent time.

Besides the remains, laid a sharp looking dagger, lodged into the marble of the floor itself. Its hilt was also in the shape of a skull, with sapphire encrusted eyes and a twelve-pointed ring of thorns carved into its forehead.

"Zzlave," she hard a clicking echoing voice behind her, as a hard cold hand wrapped around her wrist. "We zzhall mate."

She turned around to see the most hideous creature she had yet seen that night. Its lower body was that of a centipede the size of a horse. From it grew a human torso, albeit one covered in a sort of black carapace, not unlike that of a cockroach. Its mouth was also insectoid, with clicking external mandibles that rattled as it spoke, while the rest of the face was vaguely humanoid, but only in the broadest sense. Instead of hair, it had a mass of sprouting white maggots, which slowly dripped into the floor.

Jackie yelled as she pulled away from the monster. A second later, with a gleam of iron, Marco's sword came down between the two of them, forcing the horror to pull back its hand.

\----

"Let. Her. Go!" Marco demanded. Shooting an enraged glare at the entomological nightmare before them.

He knew the creature would back down. He would make it back down. 

Yes, the place was filled with bloodthirsty monsters, and he was not a fool to pick unnecessary fights, but if any of them forced the issue when it came to Jackie, he was ready. He had fought monsters before, with Star, and even more while chasing Hekapoo across half-forgotten kingdoms. Scary things were afraid of him. He had been ready for a fight since the beginning of this hellish party. He felt his blood boil at every step, his muscles tense every time that a creature held his gaze. He welcomed the sport! But so far, no being had taken him on his offer, made him make good on his threat. 

It was like it had been back in Ennio, except he hadn't yet been forced to demonstrate a thing. So far, they had all backed down.

"No."

The creature pulled its hand back, but at the same time it rose on its lower centipede body, until it towered twice Marco's height.

"No," it repeated. A clicking buzzing voice. "I won't letzz go. Zzzhe and I muzzt mate."

Marco lunged forward with his iron sword, slashing against the beast torso. Eight legs out of ten times as many held onto his blade, yanking it away from its hand.

By reflex, Marco brought his hands up in front of him, and begun a sequence of twelve gestures and twelve words in Riradesh. He had been holding out on using the Fierceness Ritual. He wasn't sure what effects it would have on his mind when the costume alone was already goading him into aggression. Well, it seemed like this beast was about to find out.

Before he could complete the ritual, however, the monster tackled him, throwing him to the ground, breaking the sequence. It launched itself towards Jackie, too fast for Marco to respond.

\----

Jackie saw Marco attack the creature, and the creature counter-attack. She saw Marco fall to the ground. She saw the gleam of the skull dagger near her and reflexively drew herself low to grab it. She hid it behind her back, as the creature lunged at her.

Marco's sword had been caught in the monster's appendages because it was large, and heavy, and slow, and it had swung in a wide slashing motion. The dagger was small and quick, and all Jackie had to do was wait until the insect abomination was close enough to her, and thrust the point against its chest. The blade would kill it, she knew. Somehow she knew it with absolute certainty.

A bell tolled somewhere, but to Jackie it felt distant. It didn't matter. Around her all seemed to freeze.

Marco was still in the floor, out of breath. Not unconscious, but not able to get back up on time. Even if he did, he was unarmed. It was up to her.

A bell tolled. Behind the monster, Sam, in his waiter attire, stood expectantly.

Time seemed to slow down, like it had during her fight with Princess White. The creature lunged at Jackie in slow motion. She could certainly murder it, avoid a fate worse than death. She wanted that foul beast nowhere near her.

A bell tolled. Sam smiled.

But she was a slave. She was supposed to be a slave. To serve. She was not the champion, that had been Marco's role.

A bell tolled. A raised eyebrow from their host.

If she fought, that might violate Sam's hospitality. That was why time flowed slowly, to give her the chance to act.

A bell tolled.

But if she did, if she fought her assailant, that would break her role, and then not only her, but all of them would suffer.

A bell tolled.

Tom and Janna. Star. Marco. She could not let Marco get hurt. No matter what, not even if he loved Star more than her.

A bell tolled.

He had tried to protect her. He kept her safe all the rest of the night, and even if he had failed this one time, she still wanted to do her best to protect him in return.

A bell tolled.

Even if it meant torment. Even if it meant hell.

A bell tolled.

The creature was now upon her, a second longer and the decision would no longer be hers.

A bell tolled.

Horror overwhelmed Jackie's mind. She closed her eyes, preparing herself for the worst. She dropped the blade.

A bell tolled.

A cry of agony forced Jackie's eyes back open, just in time to see a piercing bright violet ray crisscross the monster's carapace. The creature felt backwards, burnt and eviscerated. With tearful eyes, Jackie looked back to see Star pointing her wand at the remains of the insect-like horror. The princess looked appropriately murderous in her fury.

A bell tolled. Then, a long silence.

Jackie realized that Star was glaring past the monster's corpse now, directly at Sam. The devil was back in his usual form: glowing blue eyes and burning golden hair. 

The human girl was vaguely aware that the time around them had begun moving normally, and she was probably perceiving it at the same speed as everyone else now. If anything, she was the one who felt slow. She new, on some level, that she was in shock.

"Devils and gentlefiends, that was the twelfth bell. It is now midnight," Sam spoke to the room, unconcerned, as he walked towards Jackie. "It is now midnight, and the charade is ended. I am afraid to say, that, in the last minute, one of my five guests of honor has delivered me a great insult, by breaking her role."

"What?!" Star shouted. "I didn't! I am pretty sure what I just did fits my role perfectly. But, you know what? If it didn't, I would have done it anyways! No way I am letting that thing hurt one of my best friends!"

"Not who I meant." Sam knelt down besides Jackie and picked up the dagger. He turned to address her, pointing the tip of the weapon carelessly towards her face. "You, you broke your role."

"W..w..." Jackie tried to talk, but the shock of the last few minutes was still too much, as was the creeping realization that they were all doomed, and somehow, despite what she had been ready to do, to accept, it was still her fault.

"I gave you the tool to kill him," Sam remarked, as he stood back up. "I gave you time to decide. I gave you the knowledge that you would win. You didn't raise your hand against an unbearable fate. Why?"

Slowly, Marco was beginning to get back up. She also saw that Tom was making his way towards them. Suddenly, Janna seemed to pop out of thin air right ahead of him.

"B... because," Jackie muttered. "Because of my role... because I was a slave... so, so... so you are wrong, I didn't break the deal, I kept my role. I swear it. I was even ready to... to..."

"Ah, but you see, child, that was not your role," he spoke. Suddenly, his smile was not one of amusement. There was only one emotion in the devil's face, a gelid cruelty, an utter malevolence. Slowly, those among the eldest and most powerful of the guests began vanishing, making their own ways out of Sam's domain after the designated hour. Those who weren't quite as powerful, but were smart, scrambled for the doors. Even Nephafel ran for her life. "What is the role of a slave, if not rebellion?"

"You..." spoke a voice behind her, almost bursting with barely restrained fury. It broke through the dazed coldness she was slowly sinking into.

Jackie turned around to see Star pointing her wand straight at Sam.

"... you monumentally unfair asshole!!" shouted the princess.

"And now, princess Butterfly, you have directly insulted me," he remarked, "and you have raised your hand against me, as well. By your friends actions, or by yours, I am free of our bargain. Consider my protection withdrawn."

The walls around them begun to crack apart, the ceiling exploded into a cloud of dust, falling upwards towards the sky. The spheres of blue flame, which used to be trapped below the hall's vault, let out a long wailing sound and flew away, to join their siblings in the aurora of souls of the now exposed sky. 

Sam's body rose up, and lit up with blinding azure splendor. The demons and aberrations dumb enough, or unlucky enough, to have remained in the room burned to dust under the brightness of his light. Star lifted her wand, just in time, and a glittering purple magical bubble appeared around the five of them. It shook and wavered under the stress, but, for now, it held.

"Any last words?" boomed a voice like a thousand brass bells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Coming up next** : _Chapter 26: And then Oblivion?_
> 
>  **Note:** Unfortunately, Chapter 26 itself might be delayed a bit. Pardon the cliffhanger ;)


	26. And then Oblivion?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which she dies.

Sam's azure fiery glow illuminated the entirety of the visible world beyond Star's magic barrier. In the presence of his unearthly fire, midnight was as bright as dawn. Not with the life giving light of the sun, but with the cruel brightness of a much less hospitable celestial body, one with a malevolent will of its own. There was something about the way Sam looked, surrounded by this bright blue otherworldly light, that made Star's mind recoil in instinctive terror. She perceived something, just below the threshold of comprehension, that reminded her of the frailty of all living things.

To say Star was afraid would have been an understatement, and yet, in the face of inevitability, she was not cowed. She knew she would never match the devil's might, and he had repeatedly proved that he could outsmart any of them. But maybe, just maybe, she could still take him by surprise, strike him before he expected her to do so. There was always the possibility of being underestimated. In any case, she won nothing by waiting for him to attack first. She was not playing this defensively! She was not waiting for death to come her way!

She jumped and rolled out of her protective magical bubble as fast as she could, leaving her friends safe behind the shimmering shield. The floor reflected the horrific blue light of their host back at her stinging eyes.

"GLOWING DARKNESS HELLBLAST!" cried Star, as she sprung back on her feet. She pointed her wand directly at Sam's face, summoning forth the cutting blast of focused violet light she had used against Princess Nephafel. She targeted her foe with a destructive brightness much like his very own. 

Sam was not surprised. He moved his right arm fast, so fast that Star couldn't see it, fast enough to hit the incoming beam with the back of his hand. He literally slapped the spell. The magical ray broke into pieces, as if it were made, not of pure light, but of solid and rather fragile glass. After shattering so, no more energy flowed from Star's wand, the spell fully negated and, perhaps, forever undone. It made no sense, not according to the laws of physics she had learned on Earth, not according to those of magic which she read from Eclipsa's notebook. Yet it was so.

The devil stared at the princess, fixing on her a gaze so intense that it literally burned like fire. Star jumped away just as the air around her ignited in an explosion of blue flames. No beams, no incantation, no need for movements or gestures, Sam had but to direct his attention to cause the empty air to catch fire. He trailed her with his sight, and as she ran from it, blaze and lightning followed in pursuit. Bits and pieces of the ancient mosaic under her feet flew through the air as his sight slid through the floor. The roof was long gone, and the remains of the walls simply crumbled as Sam's gaze touched them. She was scrambling for dear life and the being in front of her hadn't so much as taken a step in her direction. He simply glared towards her. His eyes alone brought destruction.

"DEVOURING HORRORS HELL SWARM!!" Star shouted. A mass of black inchoate tentacles launched themselves at the Endless Shadow. They burned to ashes before they could touch his skin.

"DOBHAR-CHU BLAST!!"

"THESTRAL CHARGE!!"

The darker versions of her old favorite spells suffered the same fate. Monstrous lutrinae and demonic horses cried in agony as they burned to death. The Lord of Dis hardly seemed to notice her efforts. 

Star tried a few more spells, while still evading their host's sight. But she knew it was but an act of desperation. Beams dissolved before touching him, summoned weapons melted, creatures burst into flames under the azure light. Her older rainbows, cupcakes, and inexplicable explosions fizzled out before she could even finish casting them, going against a tremendous magical pressure that far exceeded the power of such paltry spells. After her first attempt, the devil hadn't so much as deigned to lift a hand to defend himself. Instead, the infernal power slowly radiating from his eyes and body undid most anything she could throw at him.

"This is beyond disappointing, princess," boomed Sam, his voice the unfeeling fury of brass bells. "I must say, I was still hoping for so much more than this sorry collection of third rate parlor tricks..."

He pointed his open palm at Star, then closed it violently. A mass of portals, not unlike those formerly created by the now inert dimensional scissors, if perhaps smaller, opened all around the mewman. Out of each portal emerged an intense beam of cerulean light. They formed into a swarm of blindingly bright spectral twisting claws. They seemed to grab, not at her, but at her layers of magical protection, tearing them down one by one. She felt her unshielded skin crawl with searing pain under their host's burning light, as soon as her defenses were removed. Star fell down to her knees, weakened and hurt. 

The portals vanished. Sam stood, immobile, expectant. His brightness dimmed ever so slightly, just below the point at which Star herself, now unprotected, would have soon burst into flames. It still hurt her eyes, and slowly blistered her skin.

"W...why?" she asked, struggling to regain her breath. "If you are truly going to kill me, you could have done it already! What the hell are you waiting for?!"

"For you to show me something new, anything that proves you can already do what I need you to do," he replied. "It would avoid us both the inconvenience of your death, and grant me the satisfaction of one rare surprise. Alas, I fear I might be prolonging this in vain."

Right, he was toying with her, testing her for something. The problem was, Star didn't know for what. On the one hand, it was beyond humiliating. On the other, it meant there was a way out! She didn't need to defeat Sam, she just needed to find a way to solve yet another of his cruel mind games, to figure out what he wanted to see. But how? Maybe, maybe if she had a moment to think... wait, that was it!

"From darkness deep and fires far, I call on time to flow like tar!" she recited.

She didn't see what she could do that would pacify the powerful being, but perhaps this would buy her some time. She only hoped he wouldn't be able to follow her into slowed time, like Toffee's phantasm had. She was beginning to suspect that, fortunately for her now, the only reason that had happened back then, was because there was some connection between "will, unbending" and the wand. Perhaps a connection to herself. Maybe, just maybe, Sam would simply freeze. Then she could figure out, at worst, an escape plan.

"No, that won't do," he said simply, raising his left hand. He extended three fingers, from middle to thumb, keeping the others closed upon his palm. A twisted gesture of benediction. 

The princess felt something other than her own magic tug at the flow of time, canceling her own pull on it. She glanced back at Marco, Jackie, Janna and Tom, none of them seemed frozen. As they looked at the scene in front of them through the bubble, they were paralyzed by terror and held back by her own barrier, but not fundamentally immobile. In the sky above them, the maelstrom of souls continued to turn.

"It wouldn't have worked the way you wished for, either way," Sam explained, "But I am afraid I want them to see this. For what is worth, that was indeed an improvement."

An improvement? Why? Because time manipulation was a harder feat to accomplish? Because it was a more powerful spell? Or maybe, he meant it was cleverer than her approach so far? No, none of that sounded like the kind of thing the Lord of Dis cared about. But there was another difference, between that spell and the previous two. The later was dark magic. It was a spell based on the principles of Eclipsa's notes, it called on powers beyond those Star could directly command, and thus, it was what her mom and the high commission would have termed dark magic. Of course that was what Sam wanted to see her do! He wanted to see her cast dark magic! It made sense for a demon from hell to want her to do that. Fine, she would happily oblige!

"I call the darkness unto me, from deepest depths of earth and sea..." she begun. 

Star was almost expecting the devil to stop her, again. Instead, he simply lowered his arms and waited. A dark mist formed around the mewman princess.

"... from ancient evils unawoken, to break the one who can't be broken..."

He smiled at her as she said that, a smug knowing smile, like she had accidentally told a joke only Sam got. Her arms burned, as the scorched black veins surfaced once more, breaking through her usual glamour.

"To blackest night I pledge my soul, and crush my heart to burning coal, to summon forth the deathly power..." 

She made sure to point at his heart this time. The half-star of her wand turned pitch black. Her own eyes glowed green.

"... to see my HATED. FOE. DEVOURED!!"

The ink-like blast emerged from the magic wand. Although a beam as well, this was of a very different nature than her opening attack. This was not her own magic, this was her calling unto the powers of death itself to annihilate her foe. It was a power designed to kill that which was immortal, and the being in front of her seemed likely to qualify for that title, particularly if Toffee, now clearly quite dead, had. But, then again, there was immortal and then there was immortal. So, would this be enough? Sam certainly didn't seem all that concerned.

In fact, the ancient devil made no movement to stop her spell, or to block it. He let it hit his chest, right where his heart should have been. For a moment, tendrils of darkness crisscrossed his loathsome azure light, a black shadow forming over his torso and projecting all around them as it blocked the light flowing from the marble skin. His eyes grew wider with mild surprise, the air in front of them once more catching fire. But then, the shadow began shrinking, the tendrils withering, and an eternal burning brightness returned to his unharmed form.

For a supposedly infallible spell, that particular bit of magic had so far helped Star a total of zero times.

"Well, that was so much better!" Sam commented cheerfully. "Now we are finally starting to get somewhere. What else have you got?"

Star let herself collapse onto the ground. That had been it. That was the deadliest and darkest spell she knew, and it hadn't been enough to either hurt or please the devil. She could use her other spell, the one powered by anger. But it was strictly a downgrade compared to Eclipsa's original spell. Besides, right now, she didn't feel anger, she felt despair. 

She looked back at her friends behind the barrier. Marco was slamming his bare fists against the shielding bubble, trying to get out. Jackie just looked, well, she looked broken. Tom was horrified, but didn't dare move against Sam. Janna was unreadable behind her cowl. Star held the human boy's eyes and mouthed: 'I am so sorry'.

She didn't expect this to work, and also didn't expect it to impress Sam enough to let her go. But if she was going to die here, then she would come out swinging. She pointed the wand at him one last time, closed her eyes, and dipped down.

When she opened her eyes once more, they glowed bright green, and a huge ball of emerald flames burst out of the half-star crystal, then another, and another. Raw meteors of destructive magic. As they got near the creature that claimed the title of the Final Cold, the fireballs seemed to veer off course, to go around his body, rather than through it. At first Star was confused, it hurt to watch him now, her mind yelling at her that something was wrong. Then she realized that it was not that her spells were being diverted, the green flame comets flew in perfect straight lines, but space itself was curving around her foe. His look was one of contemptuous disappointment.

"I see," he sighed. "So that was all? That's unfortunate. No, I don't think that will do... it won't do at all. I am afraid we are back to the original plan. Oh well, it makes little difference, I suppose."

He glared at Star, and blue fire exploded all around her, she felt a jolt of electricity course through her body as lightning struck her. Vulnerable and weak without her protective spells, she was thrown back, crashing on the floor a few steps further away from Sam. The wand flew out of her hands, gracefully floating towards the devil's open palm.

"Ah, yes, Mewni's royal magic wand: a remarkable tool, even in its cleaved condition," he spoke appreciatively, inspecting the royal heirloom, passed onto Star by her mother. "Yet it can be easily destroyed, by a simple verse, whispered into it. You know? I could just lift that spell from your mind, were I so inclined. But, then again, where is the fun in that? Let's see if we can think of more clever ways..."

Star tried to get up, but her muscles didn't seem to be done spasming. The wand. He was going to destroy the wand! Her mother's wand!

"In the absence of that spell, few forces can damage it. It was built to last a million years!" he announced. There was a cold tinge of sarcasm to his awed pronouncement. "Perhaps more. But how much more?"

He held the wand by its head, not its handle, and Star felt, more than saw, something horrifying. Time seemed to bend just around Sam's fist. It seemed to flow, not slow as tar, but quick and irresistible, like a river through a broken dam, the crack widening more the more water passed through it in an accelerating vicious cycle. The half-star grew ever dimmer, the handle began to corrode, the wings to crack and break.

"Here is an old lesson, princess: time is an irresistible force, even in the face of magic," he grinned. "Ten million. Twenty. A hundred million years. And then, just dust."

He closed his palm and a stream of fine shimmering powder, like sand, crashed onto the floor. The wand had been turned to nothing by the unnaturally induced passage of time. Star wouldn't have felt worse if the devil had burned her right arm to ashes instead. The wand was as much a piece of her as any part of her body.

"Given time, things break, worlds crumble," Sam noted, "and people?..." He extended his hand once more towards the princess, snapping his fingers at her. "People die."

She was vaguely aware of the bubble spell behind her collapsing as the wand dissolved. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Marco's look of fury as he began some strange motions with his hands. Tom's eyes glowed red. Janna rushed past where the barrier had been, unexpectedly, running towards Sam with her left hand raised in front of her. Tom seemed to overtake the witch just a second later.

But it was hard for Star to understand what was going on, because at that moment, she stopped breathing. She felt air leaving her and not coming back. She brought her hands to her throat. She tried to inhale. She grasped for air, but none was to be found. She was suffocating, unable to breathe. It was not that the air wasn't around her, it was that she couldn't touch it. For some reason, air and her were no longer in the same world. Her lungs burned. She felt dizzy.

It all went black.

\----

Seven minutes, Marco thought to himself. It takes as many as seven minutes for the human body to die from lack of oxygen. If that was indeed what was happening to Star.

He had seen the wand crumble to dust, the barrier fall, and his best friend, his girlfriend, the girl he loved, lie helpless on the marble floor, convulsing. He begun the Fierceness Ritual the very moment the protective shield was gone. Even with the added strength, he knew he couldn't win this fight. If Star's magic couldn't harm Sam, then what hope had he? But there was no way he would let her fight alone, not now that the bubble keeping him from her side was not there anymore.

This was all his fault! If he had been able to protect Jackie a few minutes ago, none of this would have happened. She wouldn't have faced Sam's cruel test, and Star wouldn't be fighting for her life now. Oh god, Marco had failed both of them! All because he screwed up, all because he held back, because he didn't use the ritual as soon as the stupid costume party started! He had been such a coward, and now they all had to pay for his mistake!

When he saw Star gasping for air, motioning to her throat, he felt a sick cold terror, an overwhelming sense of dread. It almost broke his concentration entirely, causing the ritual to misfire. But he suddenly remembered his first aid training. Star wasn't dead, not yet, the Safe Kid thought, just unconscious. He only needed to find a way to get her breathing again in the next seven minutes. Maybe more for a mewman. Mewmans were tougher than humans in almost every way, after all.

This meant that he had to maintain control, to keep a clear mind. Unfortunately, that was about to become ten times harder. 

He finished the last word, the last gesture. Immediately, he felt his entire body tense, his muscles ache, his bones compress under inhuman pressure, his heart race faster than it had ever been designed to, and his mind cloud with an overpowering thirst for violence. It seemed that the effects of Sam's costume did add up with those of the ritual, just as he had feared. It didn't help that Marco had every reason in the multiverse to want to do violence right now.

He had remembered all about the ritual from last night's dream. He figured that was the point of him dreaming about it. Maybe the Finding Ritual had worked, and he had indeed found strength. But strength had been the wrong thing to ask for! It would not be enough. Sam was far beyond any mortal strength. Marco needed smarts. He had to think, now, while he still somewhat could. He had to find a way, any way, to save Star. He didn't care to die here, as long as she survived. Wait, not only Star, Jackie too! 

In a moment of clarity, before rushing towards Star, Marco stomped on Jackie's lower chains, cutting them in two. He also crushed the ones tying her arms together with his right hand. It took most of his newfound might, but the magical chains did break under the strength of a hundred men. For a moment, Marco had been worried that even that would not be enough to affect Sam's magical costume props. But apparently, those were not meant to be real restraints, not by the devil's standards.

Marco's little pause meant that Janna and Tom had gotten ahead of him.

Tom was the first to reach the damn bastard. Sam smiled at him. His eyes dimmed. The extreme heat that had permeated the air from the moment Star's barrier fell was suddenly gone as well. 

"What's up, bro? Hope you enjoyed the party! Shame you all couldn't hold your end of the deal. But, oh well, better luck next time? You, bro, are free to go... the rest stay, of course..."

"Leave! Star! ALONE!!" growled Tom. His eyes burned red, streams of fire burst out of his hands, he flew up high into the air.

The devil's eyes burned blue, a blisteringly hot wind blew all around them once more. Sam's voice boomed, "Do you truly believe you can threaten me, Thomas Lucitor?"

Tom floated back to the ground, his eyes back to normal, his teeth gritting in anger, his entire body shaking, and yet he hesitated to fight a fight he knew he couldn't win. Janna rushed past him.

Meanwhile, Marco, head pounding, turned his attention towards Star's unconscious body. The Fierceness Ritual had been a mistake. He didn't need this much strength for what he was about to do, what he needed was to be careful. He leaned on top of the princess, put a single palm over her chest, and pressed his lips to her own. He begun the compressions, and tried, carefully at first, to breath air directly into her mouth. His clouded mind fought against him, telling him that he should be out there, ripping Sam limb by limb rather than clumsily trying to administer CPR.

It didn't work, anyway. The air seemed to refuse to go inside Star's body. Even blowing with all his strength, he couldn't get the mewman to inhale. In his desperation, he tried harder and harder, his thoughts falling behind a red mist of anger and confusion. He heard a sickening crack. One of Star's ribs had broken under his superhuman strength. 

Janna held a hand up in front of herself. Around her ring finger, a double-coiled spiral tattoo began to glow blue. It was too far for Marco to see it clearly, even if he were paying full attention, but the mark shook and slithered like a living thing. The girl's eyes glowed blue as well. It was the same shade of blue light of Sam's own blinding eyes, although far less intense: a candle-flame to his inferno. A mass of shadowy tendrils appeared all around the witch.

"Shall I let you burn today, J-flame, then? Waste your fire in vain against powers far beyond your comprehension? No, I think not," Sam declared. He pointed his hand at Janna and clicked his fingers. Her skin begun turning an unearthly shade of gray. She opened her mouth to scream in pain, but froze before any sound could come out. In an instant she had been turned to stone. "I do wonder if you simply felt you had to do this. A matter of pride perhaps? I would have thought that, deep down, you'd be happy to see the princess gone."

"You... you..." Tom flew at the ancient being, eyes glowing, his entire body covered in bright red flames, muttering something that sounded to Marco like the demon prince's version of a ritual. This time, he was not deterred by his own fear, or by the known futility of the assault. Guided by Tom's magic, dark chains and slabs of stone appeared all around Sam, trying to contain him. They immediately exploded into a thousand pieces, then fell uselessly to the floor. A marble white hand seized a charging Tom by the neck.

"Whoa, way to grow a pair, 'bro'!" he spoke. His eyes still glowing this time, the timbre of his voice still inhuman, the pretense of fake amiableness more transparent than ever before. "You know very well who it is you face and yet... yet you are willing to throw your long existence away? For them, who live lives short as a candle's wick? For your human pet?" 

"For my ex-girlfriend!" Tom corrected him. 

"Well, what can I say? It touches my heart!" Then, with a cruel smile, he added, "...shall I return the favor?"

He placed his free remaining hand atop Tom's chest, raised two fingers up, and, with a swift movement, plunged them into the demon prince's skin, piercing muscle and bone like it was wet tissue paper. Marco heard the Lucitor child yell in agony, as the older fiend scrapped a large piece of his heart out of his chest, throwing the rest of the eviscerated body to the ground. A pressurized fountain of blood gushed out of the wound. Tom seemed alive, or whatever it was that demons were as opposed to dead, but he twisted and howled in pain, seemingly completely beyond conscious thought.

"By the way, that reminds me," Sam turned around towards Marco, who was still desperately trying to bring Star back to life. "You are wasting your time."

The devil glared at the princess inert form, his eyes narrowing suddenly. Marco felt his own skin blister under the heat and jumped away by reflex. What he saw then was more horrifying than any sight in the last few days, than any other of the horrors of hell. 

Star's hair caught flames, burning from blond to coal black, turning slowly to ashes. The Countess costume caught fire as well, quickly burning into nothing. Then, her naked body began graying and shrinking, not turning into stone like Janna's, but sort of desiccating. Her flesh turned coal-like first, and then ignited, leaving only her bones. Finally, those too cracked and broke, until nothing remained of the mewman but dust and a scorched silhouette on the marble and obsidian floor. 

It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. Star was... no...

Marco sprung up to his feet, looked at Sam's smug smiling face, and there was no longer an ounce of human thought in the boy's mind. He roared like a savage beast, and charged straight at the devil. In the back of his mind, he knew the most important person in his life had just died, that he had seen her body being literally cremated in front of him. But there was no grief yet, not even anger, at least not anger of a kind he had ever known before. All that was Marco was silent, dead just as much as Star was. What remained was a single minded instinct, a need to see the being in front of him destroyed.

He punched Sam directly in the face, and the devil made no move to avoid him or block his strike. It was yet again the familiar sound of cracking bones when his right hand broke. He tried the left, with equal results. He kicked, and broke one foot as well. A hand lifted him from his chin, and threw him back hard against the floor, three out of four limbs were bending in entirely the wrong way.

It all went black.

\----

Jackie looked at the carnage around her through wide glazed out eyes. This was all her fault. She had failed to do the right thing. She had mistook what she was supposed to do. She had been willing to endure an inhuman act of violation to avoid this fate, to suffer torture to spare her friends. Yet that surrender itself had caused their demise. It had led to Star's death, possibly Marco's as well. Her turn was probably next, and that was, in a way, the least of her sorrows.

The azure brightness burned her flesh. She didn't feel it. The pain inside made the one outside superfluous. She walked towards Sam, a step at a time. She could have collapsed into the floor, just as easily. It made no difference to her either way. But for some reason she kept marching towards the cruel devil.

He said something. She didn't understand what it was. She was barely aware of Tom's screams of agony. Marco and Janna were both silent and unmoving, one unconscious, the other stone. Star had burned to ashes before her very eyes. What words could even have meaning after that? Did Sam taunt her? Ask her a question? Threaten that she was next? Either way, she did not care. There was nothing she could care about anymore.

She saw the devil raise a hand and point towards her, she did not flinch. She wondered how he was going to kill her, with the detached curiosity of one who knows such matters to be quite trivial, all things considered. Sam was right, he was absolutely right, it was all a charade, and then came oblivion.

But the marble white hand shifted ever so slightly, pointing to the empty space in front of her. Before Jackie, a black sword appeared, buried into the broken mosaic under their feet. The hilt had once more the twelve spiked circle, and the sigil of the flaming sword: Sam's seal.

The human girl put her hand on the hilt. It scorched her skin. It didn't matter. She lifted the sword, pulling it from the ground. She charged hopelessly against the refulgent devil with the weapon he himself gave her, she stroke with fury and determination born of futility.

She felt the blade break into a dozen shards on impact. She felt her own body fly through the air before hitting the hard floor. She felt the blunt pain of the impact.

Jackie briefly considered staying down and simply waiting for the final blow. When she got up, it wasn't that she cared enough to fight, it was that she didn't care enough to surrender. Another sword, identical to the first, appeared before her. She pulled it, and charged.

"... you think, perhaps, that you can defeat me?" she finally heard the words, as the sword once again broke on impact and she was thrown through the air a second time. It was not arrogance, but a quiet tone of amused curiosity coming from her tormentor.

"No," she answered as she stood up. Another sword appeared before her.

"Do you expect this will help your friends?"

Metal exploded.

"No."

A fourth sword was brought forth into the world.

"Then... Why?"

A shrug. A shower of steel shards.

\----

If Sam palace had been bright with a blue hateful dawn, this place was a blackness beyond that of a moonless night. Worse than that, since no stars shone inside the infinite expanse of the void. None until she opened her eyes. Once she did, her own pale magical glow was the only source of light in the nothingness. There was no up, and no down, no forward or backwards, there was only her, and not a speck more.

"Where am I?" she questioned the emptiness.

"Think of it as the threshold," spoke a voice in the darkness. Sam's voice. Not booming brass bells, but the cruel amused tone she had heard him use in her dream. "It is the place after where 'place' has lost meaning, and the last moment that exists in time. At least, for you."

He appeared before her, not as a glowing god of destruction, but as a bleak and macabre figure. His eyes were not bright with burning azure light. They weren't even the human blue irises he sometimes pretended to have. Instead, they were empty sockets, filled only with darkness. His marble skin was still statuesque, but now it looked muted gray, dirty, and full of cracks, it reminded her of gravestones. Golden hair had turned to rusted lead. There was no brightness coming from the Endless Shadow, just the same grimness that seemed to suffuse this whole place. There was an instant in which Star wondered if this form was weaker than the one she had just faced. It didn't quite seem that way, just an insurmountable mightiness of a different kind. But maybe, just maybe, she could chance to try again, to continue her fight in this place, to unleash righteous vengeance upon the being who... who killed her.

"Oh... I am dead..." she realized. "I _am_ dead, aren't I?"

"Mostly," Sam replied, smirking. At least, his lips curved. A smile in a face with no eyes was a particularly unsettling expression to behold.

"So," Star speculated, "dead and in hell and you are the corresponding devil to torture me? Because that'd be great, really great..." she spat, sarcastically. 

Disturbing as Sam's new form was, Star was not afraid of it. If nothing else, being already dead tended to remove fear of death as a factor in her decision making.

"Not so," replied Sam. "I am just holding you here for but a moment, Princess Butterfly. Soon enough I'll have to let go, and you will drift beyond..."

"You mean to heaven?" Frankly, she was surprised she still qualified for that.

"Oh no, you don't. Not in the least!" Sam assured her, with a laugh as dark as the world around them.

So, that confirmed what she already suspected: he could read her thoughts. Because, of course he could. They never had a chance, had they?

"No. And, well, it is somewhat more complicated than that, anyways, in your particular case," Sam continued. "Dissolution, probably. Maybe reincarnation. The City of Dis wouldn't be a final enough prison for a soul like yours, and make no mistake, once I let go, if you are still here, the result will be very final..."

"Good," said Star, defiantly. She had lost, she had died, but she would not give the devil the satisfaction of seeing her break.

Honestly, she was not sure if it was a good thing. To die, that is. Although she couldn't imagine how it could be worse than what she had just left behind. On the other hand, if she was dead, then there was nobody left to avenge her mother.

"Well, you could still do that..." Sam chuckled. It was a laugh that sucked out joy from the void itself, an anti-laugh. "It would be a miracle, of course. But you are doomed by prophecy, after all, Princess Star, and a proper destiny begets many miracles..."

"Doomed?" Star asked, uncertain.

"It is another way to say: fated, destined," the devil explained, clearly aware of which meaning Star had first understood. Then, solemnly, he intoned: "'Behold the dark queen ascending, her will the thread of fate unraveling. Behold the force of evil incarnate, borne of deepest heart's desire...' ... sounds familiar?"

Indeed, those were familiar words, from Cass' prophecy. But Star couldn't see what that had to do with anything right now. Clearly, if she was dead, and about to be dissolved, or whatever, she could no longer become a dark queen. Unless she was supposed to have been one already. The case could be made for that one, she realized, although she had never really done anything quite that evil...

"You are missing the second part, Princess Star. Your will has unraveled, or will unravel fate. Maybe both. Maybe you continuously unravel it. Or maybe your will is made of the thread of fate unraveling. Words are tricky slithering things, after all," he mussed. "But the point is that you have a destiny, one I think you haven't yet fulfilled, even if I perceive only the broadest contours of what it might be. What is death against the tides of fate? No, Star, I do not think I have destroyed you, although I would be amused to find otherwise. In any case, as a matter of preference, I do not desire your tale to end today. I expect not dissolution or reincarnation, but rather... resurrection."

"Resurrection?" Star repeated in confusion. "You will revive me? Then why kill me in the first place?!" she asked, exasperated.

"I will do nothing of the sort!" Sam stated, pointedly. "In fact, I cannot. It goes beyond my attributions. It might be more accurate to say it goes against them. I destroy, I devour, I corrode, I kill. I do not create life. Holding you in place is one thing. Pulling you towards life would be quite another. But you, however, can do it. I have seen you do it, in a future that no longer exists. All you need is sufficient motivation, I think. Something 'borne of deepest heart's desire', perhaps? So, what do you desire?"

To avenge her mom, Star thought. That was the desire that had brought her to the deepest depths of hell, that had pushed her to learn the dark arts, that had made her drag all her friends into damnation with her. That was her wish, to kill the thing that killed her mom! It was a want that she was willing to undo death to fulfill.

Star closed her eyes and dipped down. The void was deep, deeper than any other place she had dipped into before. There were no magical chunks of reality to grasp at, not anywhere near enough for her to sense. Sam wasn't there, either, not when she looked at the energies of the place he had called the threshold. If he was here with her at all, it was inside her head. There was nothing besides her in the realm of magic, same as there wasn't anything in the visible void.

Until, after a while, Star became vaguely aware of something so distant as to defy comprehension, a magical layer that laid even below that which she could usually access while dipping down. It was dark, and bright, and incomprehensibly powerful, and it called to her with a siren's song. If she grasped at that power, she was certain that getting back to Sam's palace would be easy. As her mind honed into it, the power pulsed violet and black. It told her that she could do it, that she would have her revenge, that her mom would be proud when the creature of green flames was extinguished under a darkness so deep that it would swallow worlds, and a terrible violet brightness that could turn the night into a life-ending dawn. 

Star opened her eyes, terrified. "No, no, no, no..."

It was not what she wanted. Not at that cost! If that was where her quest for revenge was leading her, if that was what the prophecy truly meant, then she didn't want vengeance anymore! Her mom would never have wanted Star to do it, anyways, especially not like that. She had been willing to delve into dark magics to avenge Moon, but this was not the kind of evil she was willing to embrace. Eclipsa's notes were wrong... not all knowledge was good knowledge.

Her wish, the wish of her deepest heart's desire, was to never become what she had just glimpsed. She remembered the rest of the prophecy: 'Only surrender may undo the shadow, but the price shall be too high to pay. In the end the world itself must shatter, and death shall be the one to claim her'. She thought she finally understood what it meant.

"I won't do it," she said. Death was preferable to a destiny like that. "Sam, let me go! Let me die."

The devil seemed to think it through for a moment. 

"No. That's not it. That's not what it means... I would know it if you got it right," he declared. "I am afraid you must still ascend back to the world of the living, until we both find out what those words truly conceal."

Sam waved a hand. It was a slow ponderous movement. He didn't seem weak, on the contrary, there was an infinitely deep force to this version of him. But at the same time, he certainly seemed less energetic than his shining visage from earlier.

Below them, in a ghostly play made of blue light against the infinite black vastness, the scene back at Sam's Palace unfolded before the mewman's eyes. Star saw Marco's unconscious body on the floor, Janna's literally petrified look of terror, Jackie stumbling back to her feet amidst a sea of broken metal shards.

"Now, how is that for motivation?"

\----

"Why?" asked Sam.

Jackie had no answer. She hadn't had one the first time, not the tenth, not the twentieth. She had lost count after that. But she got up on her feet, grabbed the black sword that appeared that very instant in front of her, and charged.

Well, she didn't charge. Not anymore. Her muscles were too sore, her body too heavy. She walked. She dragged herself, step by step, towards the Lord of Dis. Her skin was red now, insolated by the harsh blue light of the ancient devil. 

It was hopeless. It had been hopeless from the beginning. This sword had no more a chance of hurting Sam than any of the others. They said that the definition of insanity was to try the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. But, in this case, it was not like there was anything else she could do that would work any better. It had been hopeless since the fight begun, and she had known it even then. She could no more win against Sam than she could bring Star back to life or wish Marco safely back to Echo Creek.

In fact, Jackie realized, it had been hopeless even before that. At some point in her mad repetition, she had realized that they had been given no chance to outsmart the devil at his game. She understood that, had she taken the dagger back during the last minutes of the party, Sam would have claimed that defending herself broke her role, and violated his hospitality. Her role was to rebel, but only after she had chosen not to. If she had indeed rebelled, if she had fought, her role would have been to bow down. She hadn't failed a test, she had been placed in an unwinnable scenario. Just like the one she was in now.

Another broken sword, another rain of shards, another painful halting act of standing up.

Maybe that ought to make her feel better, to know that she had not really made a mistake back then, that either way the outcome was the same. It didn't. It just meant Sam had been playing them for fools since far earlier than she thought. She walked again towards her invincible foe.

"Why?" he questioned. No more bothered or more tiredly than the first, or tenth, or twentieth, time.

Jackie wondered. She knew this was useless. She could not hurt him. Star was gone. Marco was unconscious and she couldn't help him escape. Nor could she help Janna or Tom. She had no illusions that begging or bargaining would allow her to save any of them. Maybe, if she kept doing this, Sam would take longer to kill them all. Maybe he was waiting for some other unfathomable reason, and Jackie herself was just meant to be his entertainment while he waited. Either way, he could kill them all in an instant, and nothing she did would stop him. Her valor didn't matter. Her stubbornness didn't matter. Her love for Marco didn't matter. He would kill her, and him, and them all, and nothing she did one way or the other could affect that.

She had her answer.

"Why not?" she said, and she charged yet again.

Sam looked puzzled for a second, just a second. It was not an expression she could ever recall seeing on him. Then, he smiled, and she knew he understood her answer.

If it doesn't matter either way, if nothing she could do mattered, if life was a charade, and the only possible end was oblivion, then why not? Why not fight to the last breath? And why not keep charging? And why not stand up every time until you couldn't stand anymore? If it was all meaningless, then how was surrender any better than defiance? If nothing she did made any difference, then all that made a difference, to herself, is what she did. She would die, but she would die not as a slave, but as a fighter. Even Sam, with all his power, couldn't take that away from her anymore.

And so they continued, more broken swords, more hailing shards. Each time it was harder and harder to get up. Eventually, she couldn't do it anymore. She lied on the floor, in the opposite condition of that in which she had begun this fight: an unbreakable spirit in a broken body. 

It was defeat, but inside that there was a small victory, the only left to achieve. Sam never asked her 'why' again.

\----

Star saw Jackie's body stop moving. She saw all of her friends lying there on the remains of the marble and obsidian floor, defeated. She saw Sam raise a hand and bring his fingers together in a familiar gesture. His expression one of careless boredom. She knew he was about to do to them what he had done to her, to end a game of which he had finally gotten tired. 

She had no choice. She dipped down. If she had to burn worlds to the ground to protect her friends, then so be it.

She reached for the magic deep below the void.

When she found it, she was surprised. It was different than before. There was darkness and harsh consuming violet light, but also streams of golden brightness, warm and inviting, and a rainbow shimmer over it all. It was no less terrible than before, no less dangerous, but it was even more beautiful. It was whole. The wish of her heart was not only vengeance upon her mother's killer, and vengeance upon Sam, but also to help her friends, to heal them, to protect them. She went into the depths with enough hate and pain for a dozen dark queens ascending, but also, with just as great an amount of love. 

Both emotions coursed intertwined through Star's mind as she brought herself back into the world of the living. It felt a little bit like pushing through the surface of an opaque ocean. She arrived with a flash of purple light, her body unfolding in mid air in the center of the destroyed ballroom, right between Sam's glowing form and Jackie's barely stirring body. 

She had all of her six arms extended. Her hair shone golden, suddenly formed into a set of miraculously levitating pigtails. The borders of her wings were bright gold as well, tinted by the reflected blue and purple light around her. The inside of the wings, however, the greater part of their surface, was pitch black, black like the void had been. Her cheekmarks were pink hearts once again, tinted mauve. Her eyes were closed. 

She came into the world as most do: naked. A second later, however, she manifested a dress for herself. It was black, with long golden trims in the shape of flames along the neck and the hem of the skirt. In the middle, there was an embroidered blooming rose with a heart symbol in its center. The entire pattern was in dark violet thread and almost invisible against the light radiating from her. A golden diadem with long devil horns appeared atop her head, and black boots around her feet.

A stream of dust floated up from the ground, and gathered by Star's uppermost right hand. It formed into a new, yet familiar, shape. First there was a scepter of night-black steel, adorned with dragon wings, demon horns, and twelve small spikes along the edge of its circular head. Inside the head there was a hole, and a sphere of sun-bright golden flame. It was not a depiction of a star, nor a gem shaped like a star. It was a star; a real burning star, albeit of an impossibly small volume and mass. Slowly, it transmuted itself into a crystal like that of Star's old wand, if still visibly brighter with its own golden light. It was whole once more, not split in half, with each of the five points touching the inner border of the hollow wand. A small crack in the shape of a crescent moon formed inside the crystal, in the middle of the star. Violet light shone from inside the fracture, bright enough to be seen even against the solar brightness of the rest of the wand's core.

Star opened her eyes then. They glowed with a bright violet light that nearly outshone Sam's own. She was love, and she was hate.

For now, love took priority.

\----

Marco inhaled suddenly, and felt a soothing warmth over his arms and legs, and on the inside of his chest, and in every corner of his battered body. He felt himself healing and mending, and opened his eyes to see the mewman's floating body through a new protective purple bubble all of his own. 

"Star?!" he exclaimed, tears of joy running down his eyes.

He looked around, and saw Jackie getting back up, looking down at her hands as deep burns seemed to recede in an instant. She was surrounded by her own shielding bubble. Her hair flowed all around her in magical wind. Tom, whose chest wound had now been closed, and Janna, who was no longer stone, had their own protective spheres surround them as well.

They all stared at each other in surprise, and then at the gold and black shape of Star, framed against intense violet light. She looked unearthly. She looked powerful. She looked beautiful. She looked... amazing.

\----

"Alright, now, this is exciting," Sam spoke. Star's attention converged towards the evil fiend like an avalanche. If looks could kill, Star's would have murdered her foe. Had it been anyone other than Sam, perhaps she could, and would, have. But he barely seemed to notice. "It's been a rather long while since I last witnessed an apotheosis."

He smirked as the mewman held his gaze. The air sparked and burned in between their aligning line of sight. This time, she had no need to run from his deathly brightness, from the burning power of his glare, she stared the devil down. Her destructive will opposed his own. 

He lifted a hand, and a swarm of tiny portals opened all around the princess, leaving no escape path. She stirred the magic below the world, bending space itself to create an opening, and gracefully glided out of the ambush. The topology of the cosmos restored itself as she passed through. Behind her, many bright claws of light grasped uselessly at the empty air. The resurrected princess glared at the devil with murderous intent. Sam was grinning.

He floated slowly up into the air, and Star followed, cautiously. Below them, she could see the City of Dis, ever burning, and to their sides the twelve claw-like towers that surrounded it. Above them, the maelstrom of ghostly blue souls, and the black hole in the middle to which they all flowed, encompassed the entirety of the heavenly vault.

This was good, she thought, he was leading them away from her friends, where she wouldn't need to worry about hurting them by accident with her new powers. Up here, she could let go, hit him with everything she had, and hope it would be enough. She had been in butterfly form before, back when she first went through mewberty, and she had seen her mom do it as a battle technique as well. This was different somehow, however. She felt like she was still dipping down, every second, not going up and down like when she cast wordless and wandless spells before, but rather as if she were constantly submerged in the chunkier stuff of reality's stew, and slowly diving lower and lower.

She raised her wand towards the devil and simply willed him undone. A twisting stream of gold and black fire shot out from the crystal core. Sam sidestepped it with ease.

"Well... it is a start," he declared.

'I'll show you a start!' thought Star, furiously. Her mind tugged at the fabric of reality itself around them, and a thousand lances of bright violet light appeared out of nowhere, converging on Sam's floating form from every possible direction. They impacted the fiend's marble body, creating ripples of blackness like stones thrown on the surface of a lake. He seemed quite unbothered by this. She groaned and the ground seemed to shake in response.

He swiped at the air with one hand. A dozen of the spheres above them, the ones that were supposedly made out of souls, fell towards were Star was, like bright blue comets. Flapping her wings furiously, she managed to dance around them through the empty air. A single meteor graced her left boot, sending a jolt of pain through her body, piercing through the magical power that protected her. Somehow, even in this form, Sam remained well beyond her.

"So, what now?!" growled Star. Her voice was lower and it echoed with two different tones. "You kill me again? Is that it? Then why coax me into reviving? What's the point?! Why are you doing this?!"

"There is no point, Star Butterfly, never mistake that lesson, there is never any point," he replied, a tint of annoyance in his voice. "As for why I am doing this? To amuse myself... and to save me an unpleasant bit of work further down the line. In terms of the second matter, actually, I am done. We can head back down the moment you wish. I will let you and your friends go. I am throughly satisfied with how this all has turned out..." He held both hands up, then smirked. "But, well, I believe it is you who isn't done, Princess Star. You still wish to hurt me, and it amuses me to see you try."

He was, she realized, entirely right. She wanted him dead. She wanted to destroy him. She wanted to hurt him more than anything in the world right now, except perhaps for making sure Marco, and Jackie, and Tom, were all alright. Star had the odd sensation that she had struck some sort of bargain by coming back. If nothing else, her resurrection had surely increased the chances of her fulfilling that awful prophecy. She felt that she was being cheated out of something if that deal did not include enough power to wipe that smug grin of Sam's face, preferably against a bunch of jagged rocks.

Actually, that gave her an idea. Out of somewhere inside her mind, a word rose to her lips. It was an old childish spell, one she hadn't even bothered to consider or learn before now. But sometimes magnitude and raw power could outshine magical complexity. She understood this now. The version of her that knew a spell she never learned, the version of her that was continuously tapping into the magic below the void the way her old self would tap into the air she breathed, that version understood.

"Levitato!" she yelled, pointing her wand at one of the huge black towers.

The tower broke right in half. The upper part floated slowly in mid air towards them, a veritable flying mountain. It then exploded into a million fragments of stone, sharp edged projectiles of hard solid igneous rocks. She flung them like a titanic hailstorm towards the devil.

"What the hell do you mean an unpleasant bit of work?!" she shouted at him as she released her attack. Despite her fury, she processed every word he said. Her mind burst with raw emotion and held itself in detached attention, all simultaneously. This was not the first time the being had hinted at wanting Star to accomplish something for his own benefit. She wanted to know what, probably so she could do the opposite. Good fucking luck getting her to do any favors for him!

Sam waved both hands around and the stone fragments sizzled and burned. They turned to liquid magma and then evaporated, becoming a black cloud of noxious smoke, enveloping the two of them. Star coughed, and adjusted her magical shields to protect her from the inhospitable air as well as the burning heat of vaporized rock.

"I mean the creature, the one you seek," he replied calmly. "It is something that should never have been, called forth by an unknowing pact that never should have been made. It is an abomination to the natural order of the cosmos..."

"SHADOW BEAST SWARM!" was her first reply. Her second was: "So?! It sounds like you would be happy about that! Might even throw a costume party for it as well!"

Under her magic, the smoke around them began to form into fearsome winged beings: dragons, thestrals, and huge phoenixes, all made of translucent smoke and darkness, with bright pulsating hearts of violet light at their core. They cried and growled and fell upon the marble-skinned devil from all directions. Star could feel their hunger, it mirrored her own hate.

"Every creature at that party, from the meanest zombie to the proudest god has a place in the order of the cosmos," Sam shrugged, taking on the tone of a bored teacher repeating a standard lecture to a dull child. It was clear to the mewman it was an idea he himself didn't believe in, not entirely. "Or so goes that particular bit of nonsense."

He zoomed through the air, fast as lightning, tearing the summoned creatures apart with his bare hands. He briefly smiled as he strangled shadowy phoenixes and ripped the beating violet light out of conjured dragons. He was having fun, the infernal bastard! Star could follow his movements easily, but to lesser eyes he would have been an unseen flash, destroying a thousand beasts in less than a second, one by one, with a craftsman's fastidiousness and zeal.

"I have a role of my own too, unfortunately," the devil added. "One I'd rather not have to play, not in that way, not on their terms. But alas, there is only so much my leash extends, after all. I can't avoid all of my own lines in the script of our grand shared farce. If you don't destroy it first, then I'll eventually be compelled to do so myself. It is a law I cannot break anymore than I can return life..."

'Not if I find a way to kill you first', thought Star. She closed her eyes. Suddenly, she was aware of, well, of everything. She felt the energies of her friends down there, the tangle of strange magics that had somehow found themselves mixed with Marco, without the princess even noticing, the twisted inside-out thing that was now Janna's soul, as well as Tom's familiar fire. She felt the legions of demons below, the chorus of souls above. And she felt Sam. She felt Sam's power, all around her, some in front of her, but, mainly, raining down from above. It was then that she realized her mistake.

Maybe Eclipsa's spell truly was not strong enough to hurt Sam either way, but that was not the only reason it had failed. The older Butterfly had said so herself: 'aim it directly at his heart'. Star wasn't aiming anywhere near Sam's heart, when she pointed her wand at the marble skin chest.

"And you seriously expect me to do you a favor?!" she shouted at the devil. "After all of this! Why would I not simply wait for you and that blighted thing to kill each other instead?!"

It was worth considering. As much as she wanted to be the one to avenge her mother, if the creature was going to die either way, why not wait? Especially if that inconvenienced Sam.

"Because of the same reason your worlds have a Magical High Commission, Princess Star," he begun. "For the same reason all worlds have their own guardians, and heroes, and failsafes for this sort of thing, and don't simply all wait for my intervention..."

Star took her chance then. She closed her eyes, she dipped lower than she ever thought she could, and at the same time she begun to improvise. A dark poem of her own, a version of Eclipsa's spell fitting of her new powers. A call for the powers she had bargained with, to destroy her enemy. She didn't need to chant it, just think it clearly enough.

'I call the darkness within me,  
from deepest depths I set you free,  
Prophetic evil now awoken,  
dark queen ascending oft forespoken,'

Was that allowed? To invoke yourself as the entity that a dark spell called forth? Well, Star was ready to find that out!

"... because when I am called to deal with the blights of reality, when I absolutely must be bound to my role, despite my best efforts to postpone it," Sam continued, seemly oblivious to Star's silent invocations. "Well, when things get to that point, the only choice is for me to, well... sterilize the area around the infection, cauterize the wound so to speak..."

For visual aids, he summoned blue light representations of Mewni, of Earth, of Tom's underworld, and a number of other worlds that the mewman realized probably included Hekapoo's domain. The latter seemed to be comprised of three major spheres and dozens of smaller dimensions in between. The maps made of light and smoke soon burned in blue flames, as Sam made a graphic display of what his intervention would entail. The term 'Apocalyptic' fell somewhat short, in that the word implied the end of only one single world...

"... such is my role," he finished.

All the more reason why Star wanted Sam gone from his supposed place in the cosmos if she had any say in that.

'I seize my fate without remorse,  
I wish revenge and stay my course,  
for just one spark of divine might,  
that sets the skies themselves alight!'

She pointed upwards. Right at his heart. His real heart. A huge explosion of blackness surrounded her, as all light around the two of them, including their own blue and violet glows, seemed to be devoured in an instant by the crystal star in the middle of her new wand. A blinding blast of violet light emerged from the gem a moment after. It headed towards the center of the sky, towards the black hole in the maelstrom of souls, towards Sam's true heart.

The figure that she had come to associate with the Endless Shadow, his anthropomorphic avatar, the marble-skinned devil of glowing blue eyes, launched itself up that instant, at an impossible speed. It chased the beam of glowing death.

He extended a hand out, and something even brighter than Star's spell seemed to appear inside his palm. It was hard to see from where she was flying, far below Sam and the spell he pursued, but it looked a bit like a stream of fire, and a bit like a weapon, and a bit like a bright cut in the tapestry that was reality. 

Star saw the Lord of Dis catch up to her own darkest spell, and cut through the fore of it with this mighty blade. He descended towards her, cutting through the middle of her spell as if it were a tree being carved in two by a lightning strike. Except it was light itself that which now split and splintered. When Sam finally approached the origin of the beam, and Star could see his face, she found that his eyes were glowing more intensely than ever, and that he was, for once, neither bored nor smiling. A moment before his blade reached her wand, he managed to somehow rotate his body to elbow her in the face instead, interrupting the spell and sending her flying down towards the ground.

Star crashed into what was left of the marble and obsidian mosaic of Sam's ballroom floor, and pulverized the remaining design. She felt her strength leave her. Her wings shrunk into their usual tiny pink shapes. Four of her arms were absorbed back into her torso. The black and golden clothes vanished. Only the wand remained, in the hand of an exhausted naked Star.

Sam descended gently, right in front of her. For a moment, Star flinched in anticipation of the burning blue light, which her normal unshielded body was quite vulnerable to. But the devil's glow was gone, or, at least, it was back to that which he showed them when they first met. He was clapping his hands, slowly.

"Well, today has been an exciting day!" Sam declared. "You were right J-flame! Inviting all of you to my party really did made things so much less dull!"

Star saw Janna clench her fists and pointedly stare down at the floor. 

The princess also noticed that the mosaic seemed to be reconstructing itself, bit by bit, as were the walls around them.

"And Tom! You were great as well, bro!" he continued. "Standing up to me, for the sake of your loved ones? Knowing what you know I can do? That takes guts, you brave brave fool! I would know, I pulled out a bit of those too..."

Tom flinched and rubbed his chest, still looking nervous.

"Then there is Marco, of course," he added. "Such a dedication to healing others while every fiber of your being is telling you to kill! Admirable! Shame you weren't very good at either, of course, but such is life. To think you were actually so much more powerful, back when you were older... so much forgotten, so much wasted. Well, is not like it would have made a difference, but I would love to have seen that nonetheless..."

The walls were back up now, and the dome ceiling of the ballroom begun reforming atop them, covering the view of the empty wound in the heavens that was Sam's true form.

"And what can I say about Jackie? Our unstoppable girl!" the devil grinned. "'Why not'? 'Why not' indeed! In fact, well, since I am in such a generous mood, here is one last one, as a souvenir. Nothing shall break it as long as you have the will to continue to wield it..."

A rapier made entirely of clear glass, except for its golden basket-hilted pommel, appeared in mid air in front of Jackie. It fell to the ground, clattering loudly, yet the glass blade did not break or chip in the slightest. The girl herself looked at the sword as if she was afraid it might bite. This being one of Sam's creations, it well could.

"Finally there is our little supernova, back from the death and ready to embrace the call of destiny, no matter how many shall fall in her way!" he smiled broadly at Star. "You wouldn't believe how many beings with pretty strong claims at godhood fail to see what you saw. And even fewer have gotten anywhere near as close as you did to actually hurting me! Congratulations!"

"Wait!" Star finally interrupted Sam's monologue. "So, what now? Is that it? You beat us, and tortured us, and toyed with us, and you are just letting us go? I almost destroyed you and you are just... pleased? happy? entertained!?"

She knew she shouldn't be looking at a gift warnicorn in the mouth, but it all seemed kind of, well, anti-climactic. The princess felt like there had to be a reason for all their suffering, for all the fear and despair, something beyond forcing her resurrection and amusing the devil.

"You tried to destroy me, Star. Tried. There is no guarantee you would have succeeded even if that spell had hit its intended target. But I'll admit it was more than I was comfortable risking, which is something you should be quite proud about," he said neutrally. To Star it still felt condescending somehow. "I see no reason to believe you will attempt it again, however, and I think I have exhausted the value of each and every one of you to relieve my boredom. You all still broke our deal, of course. But you are welcome to stay another night in here, no tricks this time, and no promises. All I care to suggest is that I likely won't harm you anymore if you don't go out of your way to upset me," he declared, magnanimously. 

Then, as if suddenly noticing something, he added, "in fact, I haven't actually harmed any of you, all things considered. Few are the mortals that have met me and walked away whole. If anything, each of you is now stronger than they were last night when you arrived, and better prepared for the challenges ahead. The way I see it, I did you a favor. Speaking of favors, I also warned you," he looked at Star, "about why your mission is so much more important than a simple act of revenge. You truly got my best deal, all of you. If anything, you should all be grateful about how good of a friend I have been to you!"

"A friend?! A friend?!" Star shouted. The faces around her seemed equally shocked by Sam's casual tone. "You murdered me! By suffocation!"

"Turned me to stone!" added Janna.

"Ripped my beating heart out!" noted Tom.

"Would it make any difference if I apologized?" he offered, shrugging.

"Of course not!" Star remarked, furious.

"Then, I shall not bother trying," Sam laughed. 

Somewhat like a fading shadow, he disappeared, leaving them in an elegant brightly lit ballroom. It gleamed impeccably, as if no one had so much as set a foot on it that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! He was a good guy all along! ;)
> 
> Also, I promise this is the one and only time in this story that a death fails to stick. In my defense, canon did it first, and a certain butterfly needed her wings.
> 
> Next chapter is... well, is probably getting split in two, so I don't have the title ready just yet. It will mostly contain teens talking, nothing to worry about...


	27. Necessary Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which fears are confronted, relationships re-examined, and there is sympathy for the devil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Note:** I have seen the Season 3 finale, but the text of this chapter was finished before that.

It is told that, soon after the battle, Her Augustness, She Who Invites, Izanami no mikoto, Izanami no kami, who had been a guest at the masquerade, went back in search of the Endless Shadow, with intent of speaking her mind to him. It is told that she found him at the shores of light and life, at the border of the threshold of his own emptiness, and even beyond that. It is told that no mortal can imagine that place, and so we shall not endeavour to try.

It is told that she greeted him so, "Honorable Lord, we find ourselves rightly puzzled, that for all you lecture mortals about hospitality, you would act so rudely upon your other guests. Clearly those who did not offend you did not deserve their immolation. We too were disrespected, for you hurried us away." Her words were a slap with silken gloves, in intent and in fact.

It is told that the Final Cold responded in mockery of proper form, that he said thus: "Lady Izanami, far be from me the pridefulness of believing you would trouble yourself on account of rebuking my manners. Of what do you truly wish to speak?"

It is told that Her Augustness answered readily, "We fear that, seeing the burning shrine deep within the woods, you choose to send it kindling, instead of rain. Although the embers might not now worry you, in time a great forest fire might consume the whole mountain, and even you might find you can burn just as well..."

"Nonsense," His Finality retorted. "And if it were so, then that would greatly amuse me. For I am invincible despite my own self, for a long time to come, and that is only to my annoyance. You forget that I will be the one to douse the fires of the last remaining suns, and then leave, at curtain call. If the play can be less dull until then, the script less obvious, then all the better for me." This is what is told he said, although he himself might find fault with the wording.

It is told too that Izanami nodded in understanding. "You resent your place in the cosmos. That is the source of your unhappiness." 

It is told that Her Augustness, who for all that her legend was a cruel one, found herself at ease within the tapestry of creation, then felt pity for the mighty lord.

"I am not the Morning Star, Izanami no mikoto. I know there is no use raging against an unchangeable design," the Sword Aflame Inevitable pointed out. "I, more so than any other, appreciate that fact."

"Yet that very truth corrodes you," spoke the goddess. Delivering retribution for past insults received.

Or so it is told.

\----

Star felt exhausted. She was not hurt, none of them were. She had somehow healed her friends, she couldn't quite remember the specifics as to how. The damage she herself sustained after her resurrection, if any, seemed to have evaporated as well, the moment she transformed back out of her butterfly form. In fact, even a few old scars were now seemingly gone. She looked at her arms, at the tendrils of burnt blackness under the skin that weren't there any longer. There was no way she could maintain even the flimsiest of glamours in her current state, yet her skin was entirely unblemished. She was as healthy as she had ever been, at least physically, but absolutely drained in a way that was hard to describe. She couldn't have conjured a goldfish if she wanted. She supposed that explained Sam's confidence that she would not attempt to fight him again.

They had won! Well, no, they had lost, actually, by any reasonable definition. But, at the same time, they had survived, they were free to go! Sam was still an asshole, and there was nothing Star could do about the infernal bastard. Yet, at the same time, they were all alive, all free, all healthy, and alright! She felt like she was going to start crying of relief. Then, as she looked at their faces, she remembered. 

The party, the broken deal, the battle, all of that had taken the princess' mind off from the fact that she had royally, pun unintended, but also sort of deserved, screwed things up with everyone in the room. She had slept with Tom! Marco and Jackie knew this and she had just brushed them off when they tried to talk about it! Not to mention, it was her fault they were all here in the first place. All the stuff that had just happened, all the pain, all the horror, broken bones, hearts ripped out, inexorable hopelessness in the face of imminent death... She was the reason her friends had to endure that! Sure, she had rescued them in the end, and that itself had been a literal miracle. But, without her blindness, without her stupidity, without her dragging them all here in search of revenge over her mom, they wouldn't have needed rescuing in the first place!

No, no point in feeling guilty! Guilt was useless, after all. But Star couldn't prevent herself from feeling guilty, not anymore. Her emotions were no longer something she could lock in a cage and let out only when the chirping became too loud to ignore. It wasn't even that she rejected Sam's lesson. Evil though he might be, he was right in every particular: feeling sorry for what she had done to her friends didn't make any of it right, and didn't make her one bit more deserving of forgiveness. And yet, she simply couldn't help but feel a pit form inside her stomach at the mere thought of what they all had gone through, for the sake of her single-minded obsession. And that was without even counting the way she had been treating them these past few weeks! Hell, even before that! She knew Jackie had never fully forgiven her for spying on her and Marco, and Star hadn't really made it any easier for her to do so.

How could she even look at them? At Marco, at Jackie, at Tom... at Janna? Wait! Where was Janna? All the rest of them were there, but the human witch seemed to have vanished not long after their host himself did. The remaining three, however, were looking intently at the mewman. 

Slowly, the human boy begun walking towards her. Star swallowed, hard. "Marco... I... you... we... You have no idea how sorry I am! I know it changes nothing but..." He interrupted her, with a tight silent hug.

The boy held onto her like he feared that, if he let go, Star would no longer be there. She felt wet drops slide down her golden hair, just below where Marco had buried his face, and realized the boy was crying. Star's heart raced inside her chest. Her first reflex was to hug Marco back, to hold onto him for dear life, and she did. She could hardly do otherwise. After all, he literally was one of the reasons why she came back to life, maybe the main reason. Although, she realized, she would have done it for any of the others as well, even Janna.

Her second reflex, however, was to look up to Jackie and Tom, apologetically. She was very self-conscious of how the two of them might react to such a display. To her surprise, the human girl was smiling, and, well, so was the demon prince. Wait, what the here!? It made no sense! They were all forgiving her? Just like that? "A... aren't you mad at me?" For what she had done. For what she had put them through.

"Furious," muttered a voice in her ear, Marco's. "But only about you scaring me like that! Nothing else matters, nothing at all as long as you are here, Star... I... I thought you were dead!"

"Well..." she commented, "...I think I kinda was."

Marco held her even more firmly now. She reciprocated, running her hand through his dark brown hair, still keenly aware of the two other teens in the room.

"Star, look," said Jackie, "we have a lot to talk about. But, right now, I think we are all just glad to be alive, and glad that you are alive. That stuff, just now... it sort of puts the rest into perspective... you know?"

"But, it is all my fault!" Star cried. "I brought you all here! I..."

"I knew who Sam was!" shouted Tom, suddenly. All eyes fell on him. "I called him! I let us play his games! Janna, and Marco, and Jackie, and you, all of you messed up too, alright? I am not saying you didn't. But I am the one who should have known better, and I went along with this regardless. Because, well, Sam had never harmed me in this way before, and I was too wrapped up thinking of him from my perspective. I am a fucking imbecile and, if you want to blame somebody, then blame me, Star! You saved your friends. I put them, and you, in danger... and I only did so to try to impress you..."

"Tom..." Star begun.

A soft laugh in her ear cut her off.

"Pfff, come on! That's a load of crap, Tom," muttered Marco. He let go of Star, briefly, and turned around to face the Lucitor prince. The demon looked very nervous, but kept both arms down. Star knew him well enough to realize he expected, and perhaps thought he deserved, a beating. "Tom, you told me the truth. You told me why you were doing this. Not to impress Star, but to help her. Remember? In the maps room? 'We both do this for Star'? If you just wanted to impress her, or to win her back, then why even ask for my help? No, I call bullshit on that. You are a jerk, Tom, but not that kind of jerk."

Tom blinked. Star blinked. Was Marco defending her ex? I mean, it made sense, Marco was a sweetheart, and Tom wasn't really at fault for what happened last night. It had all been Star's doing. Still, she was surprised that the human boy wasn't angrier at the demon, just as she was surprised he wasn't angrier at her.

"If anything," Marco continued, "I am the one who dragged someone into hell for no valid reason."

He turned around, towards his human girlfriend.

"Don't you start with that one again!" scoffed Jackie. She looked annoyed and, for a second, almost hurt.

"But it is true," he insisted. "If I had just packed and left, if I hadn't told you about the trip, you wouldn't have been dragged into this madness!"

Jackie frowned. She seemed unhappy about something that Star wasn't quite able to place, and she was glancing at the mewman as much as she looked at Marco now. It wasn't an angry stare, not exactly, it was a fearful and slightly hurt look, mixed with frustration. "Look, Marco, maybe now is not the time to..."

"You could have been safe and happy back on Echo Creek, dating any of a dozen guys that would have been a better boyfriend than me, if I had simply left without saying anything. But I didn't do that, I went and told you that you should stay back on Earth, precisely because I knew you would not accept that," he admitted. "I said what I said to feel better about the fact that I was putting you in danger, in a way I could never have directly asked you to agree to. And you were almost... Oh god, the stuff you had to go through, Jackie! All because I was too selfish to leave you behind!"

"That wasn't your call to make, Marco..." she begun testily, almost offended. She looked down at the glass sword she was holding, pointed down. Star knew the last thing Jackie wanted right now was to be reminded of how helpless she had been, or to have her achievements in the previous battle minimized, even if she hadn't really won. The mewman could easily empathize with that.

"But I just couldn't do it!" he confessed. "I would have gone mad without you here, Jackie! I almost did. I had a horrible nightmare, a real one, a memory, last night, and I would have lost it if you hadn't been there when I woke up! I would have lost it over a fucking dream, let alone all of the other stuff: this place, Hekapoo's ghost, flying monsters, Sam... I made it through that whole horror show of a party, through that sickening feeling that my mind was slipping away, replaced by something angry and mean, again, by only focusing on keeping you safe. I failed to do that. I failed you. But still, you kept me sane."

Star felt the urge to reciprocate Marco's hug now, to be there for him. But it didn't feel like her place and, besides, he wasn't done speaking.

"Jackie, I feel like a jerk for everything I have put you through, but I can't say I wish you had stayed back in Echo Creek, because... because... because I need you," he finished.

Jackie, professional cool person Jackie Lynn Thomas, implacable 'why not?' devil fighter Jackie Lynn Thomas, blushed a deep shade of pink. "Marco, I..."

They hugged, and they kissed, and Star smiled and sighed a very audible, "Awwww!"

"But, well," Jackie observed after they separated. "If I hadn't come, Sam wouldn't have had his excuse. So, well, trap or not..."

Star shook her head, and interrupted the girl before she tried blaming herself for something so absolutely out of her control. There was too much of that going around, she realized. That thought helped put her own feelings on the matter in perspective.

"Listen, Jackie, Sam told me why he was doing this, sort of. I..." Her mind flashed back to burning worlds made of blue light, 'cauterizing' cosmic wounds, Sam's destructive power raining fire over Mewni, and Earth, and Tom's parents. Her thoughts hadn't quite been her own while in butterfly mode, but now the enormity of it all came crashing down on her: the literal weight of the world; worlds, actually. "... It is a long story, and a really really important really really bad one. But it can wait. The point is, he was not just playing around, he wanted me to die, and to come back, and to go through this place. If it hadn't been you, he would have found a different way to get what he wanted. Same goes for Tom, and, I suppose," she finally admitted, "for me."

They stood there, in silence. Quietly pondering the fact that, in this particular case, it truly was no one's fault but the devil. Not that they didn't each have plenty of sins of their own to atone for, but the battle just now had been one of Sam's design, and he did seem to always get what he wanted.

Then, suddenly, Star realized something.

"Wait, I am still naked!" she yelled, moving both hands to cover herself. She wished she still had six of those. "Why did nobody tell me I was naked!?"

"Well, Star, it didn't seem very important," smiled Jackie. "After all, everyone in this room has seen you naked already."

Star's cheekmarks shone bright scarlet. The other girl just laughed. The princess was acutely aware that she deserved that dig and more. After a while, she chuckled too, apologetically. Things couldn't be so bad between them if they could still joke at each other like that, she supposed.

\----

The warm water around her slowly unknotted the iron-grip tension stored in the princess' muscles. As she lied down inside the large tub in the bathroom of her room in Sam's palace, the room that looked like her mom's, she realized she wasn't actually tired in any physical sense. She was stressed, emotionally overwhelmed, and also, she had seemly stretched her own magical ability far beyond its limits. She couldn't so much as feel the magic around her, or the vast powers she knew were now pooled inside her new wand. She wasn't worried. She knew the power would return to her in time. Or rather, she was worried precisely because she knew that would be the case.

It was two in the morning, but she wasn't really sleepy. None of them were, apparently, according to what Marco had said before she excused herself to bathe and put on some clothes. They had agreed to meet after, to talk. The mewman had asked if they shouldn't be trying to get some rest that night. The boy had remarked that he actually felt too energized, and far too spooked, to even try to sleep. Jackie and Tom had quickly agreed, and she herself was surprised to find herself in similar condition. Star had never before been able to cast any healing spells worth using. Yet, whatever she had done earlier that night seemed to have not only cured everyone's wounds, but also been the equivalent of weeks of rest in terms of replenishing their strength.

She looked down at her feet through the surface of the water. She could almost picture a pair of black boots and a black and golden skirt over her knees. It made her uneasy. She could vaguely remember everything she had done and thought in her butterfly form. She could remember healing her friends, protecting them, coming back from the dead to save them. She could also remember her burning rage towards Sam, and the powers she had wielded against him.

The princess remembered the black tower she destroyed during their fight. Back on Earth, she had heard of titanic human constructions that her friends called skyscrapers, rising up above the very clouds. She had certainly never seen one in Echo Creek, and for all she knew, they existed only in legends, or they had been greatly exaggerated for her benefit. There were no clouds in Sam's domain, but if there had been any, Star was sure they wouldn't have reached one third of the way up that claw-like edifice. Pony Head's entire kingdom did float above the clouds, but that merely meant its base started there, there was no building in Mewni that scrapped the firmament, not Butterfly Castle, nor any of the ancient monster temples. She wasn't sure she knew a mountain half as tall, let alone any construction. Yet, she had used the huge fortification as a bludgeon! That had just been her opening move, too. She had also summoned an army of shadow creatures that made all of her previous creations seem tame by comparison. And, she had enjoyed the rush of commanding that dark swarm far more than she was willing to admit to herself.

Star had been dealing with anger and frustration for a while now, processing the boiling burning fury left in her heart after her mom's death. She had been mad often enough. She had felt the pleasure of causing pain, and the feeling of strength that came from commanding powerful dark magics. But what she had felt during her transformation was entirely different. She had felt perfectly calm in the same breath as she held absolute hatred for her foe. She had felt powerful and in control, and yet, now she realized she hadn't even been in the driver's seat of her own body, so to speak. She could remember everything she had done, but she hadn't been the one doing it.

She had reached for the power below the void, of her own free will, but everything from there until she transformed back was like being in a trance. The other Star had acted along her own priorities: it had protected her friends, it had done all it could to rain vengeance upon Sam. But, at the same time, it didn't think like her. The princess wasn't even sure it thought on a normal mewman level at all.

The words of the last spell she had cast didn't help her feel any more at ease. 'I seize my fate without remorse, I wish revenge and stay my course, for just one spark of divine might, that sets the skies themselves alight'. Who in their right mind would cast a spell that went like that? She liked the skies as they were, thank you very much! But, of course, that was a lie. She had come back to life with the thought that she was willing to burn dimensions to the ground if only she could save Marco and her friends in exchange. She had a sick feeling she might be held to her word.

Star hugged her legs against her body. Oh god, she came back from the dead. She had been dead. She probably should have stayed dead! And now... it was too much too handle, way too much.

A knock on the bathroom's door interrupted her before she couldn't even begin to cry.

"Ah, Star, can I come in?" a voice followed the knock.

"Tom?!" she replied shocked. "No! You can't, I am in the shower!"

"I, yeah, I know that, Star," the demon prince stammered behind the door. "But, like Jackie said, nothing I haven't seen," she blushed, "and this is sort of important. Before you talk to them... there is something I need to say."

Star frowned, stood up momentarily, and pulled the curtain all the way closed around the tub. With a careless splashing 'plopth!' she sat back inside the warm water. "Ok, Tom, sure, whatever, come on in."

She really hoped he got that last night had been a mistake, and should definitely be a one time thing. The mewman had probably been somewhat cruel to use her ex that way in the first place, but she thought she had made it amply clear that it didn't mean they were back to being any sort of 'a thing', and that he had agreed to that. There had been a very specific set of non-repeating circumstances that had led to her doing something like that. Circumstances like not being sure whether or not she was turning into an evil cold inhuman creature that only cared for causing pain and... ok, fine, maybe not that uncommon circumstances for her. But even if she felt the same now, that didn't mean repeating last night actions was a good idea. If Tom was trying to come on to her again, then all she need to do was to politely...

"Star, I just want to make sure we are on the same page about last night," the demon prince spoke as he closed the door behind himself. "It was dumb, and it should never ever happen again, alright?"

"Wait, what?!" the mewman asked, surprised, abruptly sitting up straight inside the tub. "Why not?!"

"Eh, wait, Star, I thought you also felt it was a mistake..." Tom replied in a confused tone.

"Yeah, well, sure," Star admitted, slowly relaxing back to her default resting position, head barely above the surface of the water. "But I still want to know why _you_ wouldn't want to do it again..." Ok, alright, she knew she was being childish.

There was a slight pause.

"There are a lot of reasons, Star. One is that you love Marco, not me. I don't think I want to play at being his replacement. It is been pointed out to me that that is not a good position to be in, and I think it would just make it harder for you two to patch things up if I am in the picture. Besides, the guy just stood up for me down there, I'd feel like even more of an asshole than usual if I kept getting in the way of the two of you," he explained. "That's why it was urgent that I explain this now, before you talk to him, ok?"

Right, because him visiting her in the shower was definitely the right way to show there wasn't anything going on between the two of them anymore. The princess sighed. She knew him well enough to know his heart was in the right place, and that he was being honest. The demon prince was just sort of socially clueless sometimes.

"Tom, I am not sure I can patch things with Marco after all I have done..." mussed Star.

"Sure you can!" he reassured her. "He wants to patch things with you, you want to patch things with him, and Jackie apparently wants you all to patch things as well." That was news to Star, maybe something the human girl had said after the princess left? "You just need to be willing to admit where you messed up, and be willing to listen to how they feel about it and make amends. But, well, I feel like an ostrich giving flying lessons. You know this stuff better than I do. All I can advice is not going off at them about how their feelings are unfair to you..." he added bitterly.

There was a brief pause while Star put two and two together. "Did you and Janna...?" 

"Yeah," Tom admitted, with a sigh. "We broke up. I mean, she dumped me, and, well, I don't blame her."

"God, Tom, I am so sorry!" the princess jumped out of the tub. Then, realizing she was naked and wet, and how terrible of a mixed signal it would be to try to comfort her ex with a hug, she just stood behind the curtain, lamely. "I really am, I never should have..."

"It's not your fault, Star. It's mine," he reassured her. "All I had to do is to say no, or even be less of a prick about fucking up after. I just, well, I just never appreciated what I had until it was gone... Big shocker, right? Who would have guessed that with me?" he added, sarcastically. "Um, don't take this the wrong way, but I would take still having Janna over what happened last night, any time."

'Well, that was oversharing somewhat,' thought the princess, frowning. But is not like it didn't make sense, she had her own regrets about that night, after all. 

"So, you are going to try to win her back, right?" Star asked. It was the kind of thing Tom did, after all. Admittedly, with mixed results. But he was certainly getting better at a lot of what went into it. "Do you even know where she is now?"

Star assumed Janna was safe after their battle with Sam, and just didn't want to talk to any of them, but she wasn't entirely sure of where she was hiding. Maybe her and Tom's shared room?

"I... I had Marco do his magic thing to find her," Tom answered, guiltily. "She won't talk to me, but she is fine."

Marco's magic thing? Star had really missed on a lot of stuff regarding her bestie, her presumptive boyfriend. She felt terrible, realizing that Tom was more up to date with Marco's life than she was. But that wasn't the topic now. "She will. Give her time."

"No, she won't," Tom corrected her. "You have no idea of how long Janna can hold a grudge."

She had some, actually.

"Besides, even if she did," the demon prince continued. "I don't really want to get back with her either. I think, well, I think I really need some time to be alone and work on myself."

Wow, that was really mature of the demon prince. Well, by his standards, in any case. Star often had to remind herself that he was old enough to have lived through the reign of Queen Solena. Maybe Star also needed time alone? No, she had tried that lately, and look where it got her. What she needed was to be upfront with her friends.

"Tom..." she trailed on. A few heavy quiet seconds passed. "... I am still sorry, about everything."

"Yeah, so am I," he replied.

Another long pause.

Finally, she broke the silence, "Mhmm, so, Tom, can you pass me the towel?"

A purple hand passed through the curtain, holding a long fuzzy blue towel. The demon prince made no attempt to peek inside. Star carefully adjusted the towel around herself, and came out of the shower. She proceeded to find a second smaller towel, wrapping it around her blond hair.

"So, Star, just out of curiosity, last night..." Tom begun, his mouth forming a half smile to the side, showing a single playful fang. "... did I do better than Marco?"

Star groaned at the question. So much for him being mature.

\----

"Well, come on, dude, what are you waiting for," Jackie prodded Marco on. 

In truth, she was as nervous about this as the boy was, if not more. She was afraid she was doing this for all the wrong reasons. She glanced at the glass blade she was holding. It had nothing to do with this, but, for some reason, it felt reassuring. Not as a weapon, but as the proof that she was stronger than others thought, than she herself once thought. It was a reminder that she wasn't doing this out of surrender or self-loathing, but out of strength and love.

Marco knocked at the door. It was unlocked. It wasn't even truly closed, just propped barely ajar. It swung open as he hit it, revealing a still naked Star, clad only in a long blue bath towel, sitting in bed, combing her hair. Besides her was Tom, in his black 'scoundrel' outfit. Their smiles faded the moment they spotted her and Marco. Tom, in particular, looked downright terrified.

"Shit! Marco, man, I... Would you believe me this is not what it looks like?!" the demon prince pleaded.

Jackie eyed her boyfriend nervously. He had removed the armor from Sam's costume, keeping only the brown trousers and boots, and left his own sword back in their room. He seemed a bit surprised to see Tom there, but forced an uneasy smile.

"Actually, Tom," the human boy said. "I am glad you are here. It is probably good for all four of us to talk, I mean, if you and Star are going to be together too..."

Tom blinked. Star stifled a chuckle. Then Tom began laughing too. Marco frowned. Jackie knew it had taken him a lot of courage to actually propose that. A while ago, he had been the one who said it wouldn't be fair for Star not to be able to open up the relationship on her end too, given he got both Star and herself. But still, she knew Marco was not entirely at ease with the idea. Not yet, in any case. There was a big difference between a theoretical 'someone else', and the reality of Tom and Star being a thing and its implications for all of them.

"I mean," Marco corrected himself, "assuming Star and I are also still... dunno, I don't want to presume anything. I guess I am just saying it'd be good to talk..."

"Actually, Marco, you three have stuff to talk about; without me." The demon prince walked up to a stammering Marco and gave him a strong pat on the back. "Look, I am sorry about yesterday, and I appreciate what you are offering. It is more than I would do for you, actually. But I shouldn't be dating anyone right now, let alone get involved with the three of you! ...no offence. I already talked with Star, and we are just friends, nothing more. For real this time."

He walked past the two humans, and through the door. He pulled the handle from outside the room, without looking back. Right before it was fully closed, he stopped and added, "Marco... don't mess it up." He slammed the door behind him.

The three remaining teens stared at each other. Finally, Star broke the ice, "so... ah, you got rid of the shackles?" she asked Jackie.

She had, even if the rest of her clothes were still that crappy slave costume. They didn't seem to affect her mind much now, they were just sort of itchy. 

"Yeah, dude, turns out this thing can cut through iron," she waved the crystal rapier, carefully. It actually had a very sharp edge, and the point could pierce stone. She had just tried it out. "The only downside is that it doesn't come with a scabbard." 

Well, and that it was literally a gift from the devil. Jackie was like two thirds certain that would come up to bite her later. She still couldn't let go of her prize.

"I... I think I can help with that, Jackie," spoke Star. She grabbed her new wand, which Jackie just now had the chance to fully admire. It looked so much more badass than her old wand, and that had been badass enough. With a flick of the mewman's wrist and some word soup incantation, a polished gold and nacre scabbard appeared around Jackie's sword. In the center, a golden seashell with a crown acted as the main piece for the metallic pattern. "You know, for Prince Jack," Star explained.

Jackie flinched involuntarily.

"Did... did I do something wrong?" questioned Star. She seemed a bit paler after casting the spell, and carefully put down the wand on the bedside table, drying the sweat of her palm against the towel. 

The human girl shook her head. "Not at all. Thanks, Star. It is just, look, this is all way too awkward still," she sighed. "I think... maybe what we need to do is to take turns saying how we each feel, what we want, and what we are bothered about. I can start, if that makes it easier," she offered, uncertain.

"Actually, Jackie, can I start?" asked Star. Jackie nodded, she had no objection to that. She just had felt it was her responsibility, since she brought up the idea. "I am scared. Really really scared. I am scared of myself. I have been feeling a lot of very bad things since my mom was killed, and it actually doesn't excuse any of my behavior, but sometimes, it is more than I can handle. I feel I am really going dark, like the prophecy says I will. Hell, after today, I am worried I am not even going to be me once I go dark..."

She told them about her transformation, about not being exactly herself while she was in butterfly mode. Jackie had to admit it was far worse stuff than she had expected. Star also told them about being dead, and Sam's goals, and his purpose. She told them about his threat that he would burn Earth and Mewni and Tom's domain to ashes if Star didn't take out the thing that killed her mom. She told them a lot about how she felt the last few days, about her dream, about Sam's speech to her inside that dream.

Jackie wondered for a moment if her own dream had truly been just her own subconscious talking to her or, perhaps, yet another of Sam's mind games. She wasn't sure. The questions 'Prince Jack' had raised were not entirely foreign to her own fears, if she was being honest, so either case was plausible.

"Guilt is not useless," pointed out Marco, calmly, as Star finished her tale. His face was twisted into a concerned frown. "How you feel about the stuff you do matters. Because, if you don't care about the bad things you have done in the past, then you have no reason to do better in the future, no real drive behind the commitment to avoid the same errors. That is not the same as never forgiving your own mistakes, or spending your life reliving them. But, still, sometimes the guilt is what makes you remember your failures, so that the lessons truly stick, so that you can do better the next time around."

He sounded harsher, and older, and more personally familiar with the matter than he should have been.

"What about the mistake of sleeping with Tom?" pointed out an embarrassed Star, looking down at her knees from her sitting position.

"That's not really a big deal," said Marco, tentatively. Then, he corrected himself, "well, not on a grand moral scale. It is definitely not like you should necessarily make it a priority to remember it as a big lesson, or anything like that. That's not the kind of thing I was talking about, ok?"

He sighed, and continued, "But, at the same time, I guess that for this to work, I probably do need to be honest and say what it meant to me, personally. Well, it hurt, and it was shocking, and I almost feel dumb that it matters to me, after everything else we have been through. But the reason it does matter to me, I think, is that I don't understand the why. Both why you did it, and why you did not talk to us about it before, or after."

"Because I was in pain, and full of horrible thoughts, and I didn't want you to have to deal with them," admitted Star. "Tom could handle that. He is a demon. Look, Marco, I love you, I want to be around you with every fiber of my being. But, in that one instance, Tom could help me deal with stuff you couldn't, that you shouldn't have to deal with. It doesn't excuse what I did and, in the future, I will deal with that myself. But I can't bear having you exposed to all the stuff that's wrong with me right now... so, I got lonely, and maybe a bit... well, so Tom, ok? Like I said, it was a mistake. I am sorry. I never wanted you two to see that, that was precisely the point. I thought that stuff was over too, the seeing stuff. I haven't seen you two in... oh, ooh!" she stopped abruptly, figuring out that there had simply not been anything to see.

Marco blinked. "Is that all?"

Star nodded.

"Then, can it be my turn to talk?" The two girls nodded together then. "I have been in prison and I have killed a man. Well, probably many many more than one, but only one I can remember so far. And, for the record, Star, I also have some experience with the feeling that a darker angrier version of myself is taking my body for a joyride..."

Star and Jackie listened with open jaws to Marco's story. About the way the memories came back after Hekapoo's memory seal begun fading. About the rituals. About using the Finding Ritual to induce yesterday's nightmare, and what the nightmare actually contained. About the Fierceness Ritual, and the little girl, and the ugly man, and the even uglier things Marco had done to him.

"... and, of course, who knows what else is still hidden away in those sixteen years," he concluded. "So, Star, if you want to sleep with Tom because you are having a good time of it, or like him, or find him attractive, I say do it... just maybe give us heads up, at least if we are still going to be together? But if you are doing it because you think I can't handle the stuff you have been going through, then let me know, and we can compare notes about how messed up we both are. There might not be skies ablaze in my future, but there are apparently plenty of skeletons in my past, and I don't think I have even begun digging them all out."

Jackie walked to Marco and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to reassure the boy. Star then walked up from the bed, and headed towards them. Jackie drew back as the mewman princess proceeded to hug the human boy. She drew him into a close trembling embrace.

"Oh, Marco, I am so so sorry," Star said. "I had no idea. And... and once again, all of that is also my..."

"It is not your fault," he interrupted her before she could continue down that path. "I chose to challenge Hekapoo, I chose to go after her, and there was no reasonable way you could have foreseen any of that. When I said guilt is not useless, I didn't meant that you should blame yourself for things you had no control over, either, Star. And, also, it is not necessarily a bad thing that I went through that. If those sixteen years hadn't happened, we would not have had a way to find our lead towards Hekapoo. I still don't know what else is buried there, but I got a feeling we might need more of those rituals in the future, even with you around. I think it was all worth it, if it means I can be there for you now."

They hugged even tighter. Jackie remained quiet, it still didn't feel like her turn.

"Marco, that's the thing, I am still not sure you can," Star argued. "Earlier, before the party, I was thinking about all the danger I keep putting you all in, and that was even before Sam went all 'judgment day' on us... I can't ask you, any of you, to keep risking your lives like this."

"Star, you are not asking, we are just coming with you either way," the boy answered, winking at Jackie. "Besides, given what you said about Sam's threat, our lives are all in danger, whether we follow you or not. Hell, the lives of our families, of everyone in Echo Creek, of all of Earth and Mewni, are in danger. If there is even the slightest chance that me, or any of us, being with you is the difference between success and failure, then what you cannot ask is for us to sit back and do nothing. Also, I really can't imagine letting my best friend, or the girl I love, go through all of this alone."

Jackie coughed.

"One of the girls I love," Marco corrected himself. They all chuckled, Jackie a bit more nervously than the other two, but they didn't seem to notice.

"Ok, talking really did feel better," Star said, somewhat surprised. "Now your turn, Jackie. Spill them! What kind of stuff is troubling you? And, on scale from Ingrid hearing she can't borrow a battle axe to Miss Skullnick after math finals, how angry are you at me right now?"

Jackie blinked. No least because that first thing about Ingrid sounded like it was based on a real situation, one for which she was decidedly missing some context. Well, now was not really the time to ask. The girl took a deep breath, and thought of all the things that bothered her. The main thing, the thing that she for sure had to bring up, was her fear that Marco liked Star more than herself. She didn't mind that Marco loved Star, she knew that. But maybe she felt a bit uneasy, thinking that he thought she was cooler, or got him better, or, well, that she was his real main squeeze, and Jackie was the nice to have. If that was the case, that was hardly the end, but it might mean some adjustments to how she saw her own relationship with Marco, for her own sake. In any case, it was obviously something that she should be getting some clarity on, sooner rather than later, whatever the answer ended up being.

"Well, I am still angry that you were spying on us for so long without telling us, Star," she said, chickening out. Wow, Jackie Lynn-Thomas, way to be a hypocrite! This whole 'talking about our deepest fears and wants' thing had been her idea, after all. Still, it wasn't like the scrying thing didn't bother her too. Perhaps it was easier to address that one first, and then move on to the other, thornier, stuff.

"I... I am sorry, Jackie, again, I really am," Star repeated, rubbing her hand against the back of her head. "I mean, about not telling you two. I really have no excuse there. I guess I was just too much of a coward. I was afraid well, of this, of you hating me, I guess..."

"I didn't say I hated you, Star. I said I was angry," Jackie clarified. Ironically, right now she could easily understand being afraid of bringing up something like that. She really could. Maybe she was being too harsh on the princess? The whole thing seemed like ages ago, given all that had happened in the in-between. Still, she had to admit it bothered her some, "I guess the truth is, besides the trust issue, the idea of you seeing... well, you know... it's... it's really weird, Star. I guess I might not show it much, but it actually makes me sort of self-conscious, alright? I think Marco feels similarly. That's why we haven't been, well, you know... Knowing you are, or would be, watching, well, it makes things pretty damn awkward for me."

"Yeah, totally, totally..." nodded Star, nervously. "I get it, and I am sorry. But, also, after the first time, I just didn't have control over it, I swear..."

"I guess I kinda know what that feels like now," remarked Jackie. She glanced at Marco who was just flustered enough for her to tell he got what she was talking about.

"Riiight, Tom," Star mussed. She made a face like she wanted the ground to swallow her up. "Guess that makes us a bit more even, in a way?" she offered, cautiously.

A thought occurred then to Jackie. It was the most counter-intuitive weird thought possible. It made no sense. It was the very thing that she was angry about, combined with the thing she was really afraid of, and yet, it made her, well, it made her curious. What she wanted to do now was all kinds of messed up. It was not reasonable, it was doubtful that it would be helpful, and it was, frankly, not very nice. She wanted to actually get even.

She looked at the golden seashell in the middle of the nacre scabbard. 'Why not?' she thought. 

"No, I don't think we are, Star," Jackie noted. "We are not even. I mean, you casted the spell, and spied on us, and then your spell caused us to watch you. It was all your doing, so I don't think that counts as even. Look, Star, I forgive you, right now, I do, so you don't need to feel forced to do this. But we are not even. Do you actually want to be even?" she smiled. It was sort of a wicked smile, at least by her standards.

Star's eyes narrowed. In another time, the mewman might have had eagerly agreed to anything in order to soothe her guilty conscience. But the princess was no longer as naive as she once had been, if she had ever truly been so. For a second, she looked a lot like her colder self from the last few weeks, and Jackie began to regret pushing her buttons. Star eyed her up and down. Cautiously, she asked "How?"

Jackie breathed in and forced herself to remain calm. "I get to look this time, on my terms."

"What?!" Star's eyes went wide. "Look at what? How? ... Why?"

Marco was shooting his human girlfriend an even more incredulous stare, like she had suddenly grown a second head.

"You and Marco," she explained. "Look, you don't have to do this. I am not going to hold the spying thing over your head forever either way, Star, what's done is done." That was true. "... I guess I was just joking." That wasn't.

Star looked down, embarrassed. "Well, ah, Jackie... why do you want to see that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Jackie admitted, also nervous, but feeling a bit better now that she saw the princess' reaction. The mewman's voice was hesitant, but not angry or resentful. "But I sort of do. I mean, maybe this is not a good thing to bring up now, what with all the other stuff. You two are talking about the fate of the world, and I bring this up... I guess it was a stupid idea... and if you don't want to..."

Jackie realized that she was rambling. 'So that's how being Marco feels!', she thought to herself, a silent anxious quip.

"I am in," interrupted Star, still not lifting her gaze from the floor. "I am in if Marco is in. But, I still don't get it, Jackie. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know," repeated the human girl truthfully. Perhaps it was her way of confronting the thing she was really afraid of. Star and Tom had been weird to watch. It had been a surprise, and it had been upsetting because Jackie was worried that would hurt Marco. But it didn't tell her much. It didn't tell her if what Marco and Star had was much different from what she and Marco had. It was not like it had to be the same, in order for what the two humans had to be good too. But, well, still, she just had to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-creepy Star is back! Sort of... partly... Also, yes, this entire chapter acts as the set up for the final smut scene of Part III. What? Didn't you all realize this is still just some porn with plot? ;)


	28. 赤い月

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is love making, fucking, fuckedupness, and mind-fuckery, not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porn... with plot

The silence was thick enough you could probably cut it with a battle axe. The only sound was that of Star's own heart, as it thumped loudly inside her chest. Honestly, Jackie's idea did sound pretty crazy. But, at the same time, Star realized that she wanted to do this. She missed Marco. She missed excitement, and fun, and weird, and awesome, and all the joyous bright feelings that she always felt when she was around her best friend. The kind of feelings that seemed to have been displaced by a dreadful emptiness ever since they returned from St. O's. And, ok, she specifically missed sex with Marco too, alright? And Marco kisses. She could always use more Marco kisses. 

She had spent two weeks with her heart frozen solid with anger and determination. It had led her only to pain and to death. Pain and death might still be in the horizon, closer to all of them than they could possibly imagine. After coming back to life, Star wanted to feel alive even more than she ever did before, and that was saying quite something!

It wasn't that she was ignoring how bad or how serious things were. She knew they were bad, really bad. But there would be time for that tomorrow. Sam was not going to destroy them or their homes today and, while they were inside his domain, they remained safe from anything else that wished to hurt them. That much hadn't changed. It gave them one more night of calm in the eye of the storm. So, for now, she could do with figuring out if things between her and Marco were not completely torn to shreds after the last few weeks, if they could even go back to how things felt, before St. O's. She could do with feeling the boy's hands on her body, his lips against hers, his... well, you got the idea. She could really do with some 'happy we are alive tonight' sex. That is, if Marco was up for it.

Right now, however, the boy seemed to be looking back and forth between the two girls. That whole air of Marco being older and wiser, which he had had just a few minutes ago? Gone! He was back to being the awkward boy he had always been. Which was, usually, like super cute and everything. But, right now, it was mostly making Star herself way too nervous about the whole thing. 

Jackie had grabbed a chair, sat calmly on it, propped her sheathed sword against the wall, and smiled at the two of them, expectantly. 

"Marco," Star asked, "do you want to do this? It's fine if you don't..."

"Yeah..." he answered, uncertain. "I mean, yeah, I do. It is, just, I... I... Damn, this is like every guy's fantasy, and I can't figure out how to start... even though I guess it is the same as any other time... I... I suppose I am just having a bit of a... Marco moment," he stammered, and let out a small sigh. There was a faint chuckle from a chair near the wall.

"How about," Jackie spoke behind him. Star noticed the human girl winking at her. "How about I tell you how to start?"

Marco nodded, bashfully, "Ah, yeah, ok..."

"Alright, Marco," the human girl spoke. Her voice sounded a lot more confident than it had mere moments ago. It sounded like Jackie again, the mewman thought. "First things first: go sit besides Star on the bed. You are not getting anything done just standing there, dude." She chuckled good-naturedly. Star noticed the other girl was still blushing softly. The boy, of course, couldn't see that just yet, since he was still facing the other way, towards her.

Marco walked up to where Star was sitting, and sat himself, a bit too rigidly, besides her.

"Good, now, turn to look at her," Jackie commanded him, clearly enjoying her role as improvised puppet master. She said nothing for a while. Star stared into Marco's chocolate-milkshake eyes. The princess bit her lip, in anticipation. Right then, she heard Jackie say: "Kiss her."

She felt Marco's lips on hers, his hands around her back, brushing gently against her wings under the towel. She gasped, and kissed him back, hungrily. She hugged his back and pressed herself against his shirtless torso, feeling the heat of his body through the towel. The kiss seemed to last forever, and yet not nearly long enough. She missed this, and he apparently missed her too. Once they finally separated, they were both staring at each other's broad bright smile.

"Wow, nice going there, Diaz!" Star heard Jackie exclaim, and her cheekmarks went red with a nervous blush. It only got like five times worse, after she heard the next instruction. "Ok, now, take off that towel."

Marco effortlessly unknotted the blue towel from over her shoulder, and let it fall. His eyes were glued to her famously small breasts. "Marco, you have seen those before!" she protested. He had seen them just now, right after the fight, actually. They all had.

"Well, I don't think I ever truly got a good look," Jackie pointed out. "Marco... show me."

She was clearly enjoying this way too much! The human boy did as asked, and gently turned the princess towards the outside of the bed, towards a grinning Jackie. Star felt extremely self-conscious then. She knew she didn't measure up to the human girl, and, besides, she wasn't sure if she liked the idea of another girl checking her out. They were both into boys anyways, not girls, right? I mean, not that there was anything wrong if Jackie was, of course...

"Ok, now touch them, and lick her neck," the other girl commanded, and Marco complied. Star looked at the other girl incredulously, even as she let herself become lost in the sensations, her earlier questions and concerns forgotten. Of his own initiative, Marco gently bit her left earlobe. She gasped.

Jackie's eyes went wide with surprise, and she reached out towards her own left ear. "Star, what the hell was that?!"

"What was what?" the princess asked. Marco stopped, confused.

"I felt that!" Jackie explained. "Maybe I am imagining things, but..."

"Oh?" Star blinked, then smiled broadly towards Jackie. "Oh. Oooohhh! I, I think I know what it is... Jackie, let me show you something super cool! Marco, my breasts... lick at them!" She shouted, enthusiastically. Her hesitation overpowered by her eagerness to show the other girl something really awesome.

Marco seemed hesitant for a moment there. Star simply turned to face him and proudly presented her own chest as an invitation, forgetting all previous considerations about the size of the 'treat' she offered, pointing at her nipples like he needed help to find them. "My boobs, Marco Diaz, if you please."

"Well, I mean," Jackie chuckled, "It's what I was going to ask for next, so..."

The boy shrugged and smiled, and begun kissing along the slow rising edge of two tiny but sensitive mounds of flesh. Star closed her eyes, and focused on just feeling things, her mouth vocalizing unconscious purrs of pleasure. Yeah, yeah, irresponsible, dark magic, not a toy, yada yada. But, well, she had to show this to Jackie! She was going to flip!

The mewman let herself feel the texture of Marco's tongue against her skin, the anticipation of his ever closer circular laps around her nipples, the urgency of long postponed sensations, the building arousal between her legs. She could also perceive something else, shimmering invisible around her, and inside her. She could feel Marco's desire as well as her own, and also...

She heard a gasp coming from the chair, and opened her eyes to grin knowingly at Jackie. "So! You felt that too! Right? Right!?"

The human's nipples, pointing visibly through even the unflattering brown fabric of her costume, were almost proof enough. Although, of course, maybe she just liked watching. The princess could have empathized with that, after all. Not that she would admit to it, of course. Still, Star didn't think it was just an effect of the view.

"How?" Jackie asked, as calmly as anyone possibly could in that situation.

"Well, it's the link," Star explained. Then, upon seeing the girl's puzzled look, and Marco's, she added, "the thing that makes me see you two? I guess this confirms that it works the same both ways. I should have known after the Tom thing. But, well, the thing is, maybe I never mentioned this but... I can't only see things, I, I feel them..."

"You have been feeling us having sex!" Jackie shouted, shocked and flustered.

"Yeah... I... I am sorry, I should have..." Star begun stammering. It just occurred to her that showing off like this was a bad idea, given Jackie was not quite over the spying thing in the first place.

"Yeah, of course you are," Jackie rolled her eyes. But she didn't seem too much more pissed than before. Possibly because, if she had felt half of what Star had felt, she was likely just a tad bit too revved up to care now. "Ok, Star, anything else you want to confess to and/or show me?" she asked, playfully.

"Oh yeah..." The princess tried to contain her enthusiasm. Jackie was in for a treat, and hopefully, so was, "Marco?"

"Yes, Star?" he asked with a grin. His hand somehow found its way to casually rest atop her left thigh, the base of his thumb practically at waist level. It gave her the best kind of goosebumps. "Want me to keep going?"

It was clear that he too was getting into this. Still, tempting as letting him pleasure her was, she had an even better idea.

"Actually, I think you should be getting rid of these," she announced, as she begun unbuttoning his trousers.

\----

Jackie looked on silently as Star pulled down Marco's pants and he pushed out his sneakers. The mewman then calmly walked to the dresser, pulled a small hair band, and tied her still drying hair in a single ponytail, before heading back for the bed. Then, she placed her discarded towel on the floor, in front of him, knelt down on top of it, and, glancing back at the human girl, winked at her. Jackie realized Star was putting on a show, and it was as much for her benefit as it was for Marco's!

Well, Jackie thought, it was not like having Marco fully naked, rather than just shirtless wasn't a plus for her. But she actually felt a little bit worried about this now. Marco making Star feel good was something she could handle. Honestly? It made her feel proud of him in a hard to pin down way. Besides, it was hard to complain about that, since, apparently, she got to feel the same things as the princess did, or something close enough. But Star giving Marco a blowjob? What if it turned out that the mewman was super amazing at it, and then now every time Jackie was giving Marco head she had to worry that she might not be up to standard?

Not that it was a bad thing if Star made Marco see heaven, of course, good for him, but she wasn't sure she wanted to know that for sure. Jackie was not a very possessive person, and she did not consider herself jealous in the usual sense. On the other hand, a competitive streak was something she was willing to admit to. She wondered how Star felt about this whole thing. More than that, she would have loved to know Marco's thoughts on the matter.

Marco looked down at Star, then back up at Jackie. She forced herself to meet his eyes. 

He was still staring at her when the princess begun licking the tip of his cock. The reason Jackie knew this, incidentally, was that she felt the princess lips around her own... well... not hers, per se, she didn't actually have one of those. It was still Marco's cock, but Jackie felt everything the boy felt. She could not only perceive the raw sensations, but the jumble of excited feelings inside the boy's mind. Not his thoughts, after all, but some basic emotional building blocks: happiness, pride, excitement, acceptance, transgression, and a big fat serving of hot blooded horniness. She had wanted, and dreaded, to know how Marco felt about Star, and how he felt about her, and now, she was perhaps about to find out. 

There was a flash in the back of her mind, a flash of the color green. But she was only vaguely aware of that, because at the same time, she felt something hot and wet swallow a hard shaft that felt like her very own. It felt good, it felt really good. Not as intense as someone sucking on her clit might have felt, more diffuse, but also more bearable. There was little risk here of the sensation tipping over into painful over-stimulation. It just, built up inside her. An excitement. A pressure.

She felt powerful, and realized that was all Marco. She learned that, as kind and timid as the boy sometimes was, there was something about getting a blowjob from a fucking princess, while the hottest girl in school watched and fidgeted in her seat from her own arousal, that fulfilled some primal power fantasies. Fantasies he might not even have known he had, that he would never dare admit to her even if he ever admitted them to himself. She felt him feel guilty in an unfocused vague way, so she winked at him, and licked her finger suggestively. 'Dude, enjoy this, bask in it, I like it too,' she thought at him, although she suspected that, even with the link, he still couldn't actually read her mind.

She felt giddy, and realized that was Star. Naughtily anticipating not only making Marco come, as she licked all around his cock and applied pressure up and down with her tightly pursed lips, but also surprising Jackie. She realized Star could also feel Marco's sensations, and she wasn't sure how she knew, probably because she felt the mewman feel them, in addition to the direct feedback from the boy. She learned then that the princess also had a competitive edge to herself, that she wanted to show off to Jackie. It was not in an overly mean way, or at least it didn't feel so, but it still made the human girl uneasy.

She wondered if they could feel anything back from herself, at all. Or if the fact that she wasn't participating kept her own feelings private. After all, that was the intent of their little game: they were on display, and she wasn't, not this time. They got their power high from showing off to her. She got hers from watching them while she remained unexposed. Or, she realized, given the magical weirdness involved, _less_ exposed.

She felt Star pick up the pace. She heard Marco gasp. For the first time she understood the sensation of having a pair of full balls and to desperately yearn to empty them. She sought the boy's gaze, pleading him to maintain eye contact as he exploded inside the other girl's mouth. She realized that was a subtler power fantasy of her own. He did. Star slurped, loudly.

"So, are we even?" Star turned to ask her. The mewman's cheekmarks were glowing like freaking traffic lights, clearly just as turned on as she was embarrassed.

"Yeah, dude," Jackie said, feeling unsteady. "We are. Wow. That was... what was it that you say? 'Weird-awesome'?" She laughed, nervously. "Thanks, you two. I kinda always wanted to know how it felt from that side," she admitted.

"Wait, Star," gasped Marco finally. "Jackie might have let you off the hook here, but we are not even yet. I think I need to at least return the favor."

Star bit her lip, glanced at Jackie apologetically, and got atop the bed, laying on the opposite end from where Marco was seated, slowly opening her legs.

\----

Marco had missed this. He had missed Star. He had missed the sex, definitely, but, even more, he had missed things being ok between them. He had missed her smile, her happy mischievousness, the sound of her laughter... and he had missed making her squirm as he licked her cunt. What? He was a red-blooded human guy just like any other, after all!

Right now, he was taking great delight in the fact that Star kept shuffling around, trying to press herself against his mouth, as he took the time to lick around the border between her thighs and her outer lips. Star was always impatient, but he knew it was better to take things just a little bit slower than that. He kept teasing her for a while. Then, eventually, he begun running a flat tongue over the middle of her sex, warming her up for what followed. He heard Star gasp, and then, right after, Jackie too.

Holy crap, if Ferguson or Alfonzo ever heard about this, they were going to spontaneously combust from envy alone. Marco felt like such a stud, pleasuring two girls at the exact same time, making both of them hot and bothered out of their minds, using every trick he knew worked on either of them. He doubted in all of his years roaming Hekapoo's dimension, even with muscles, dragoncycle, and all that, he had ever felt quite as manly as he did now.

He felt Star's breath quicken, and he picked up the pace to match, starting to trace circles inwards and upwards with his tongue. He grabbed her legs as she began to tremble. "Marcoooo..." she gasped. A pair of superhumanly strong hands began pressing his face down, holding it in place.

He heard Star moan, and Jackie pant softly. It was weird, he had never made the comparison in his mind about how each of his girlfriends sounded in bed, but now that he could do the side by side test, the differences stood out clear as day. Interestingly, it seemed that they both were at about the same point towards their climax. Of course, for Jackie, he had only her partly restrained grunts to go by, whereas with Star, he actually felt the sensations as she did. He used those to guide his pace and direction.

Perhaps the link, however it worked, transferred not only the sensations, but the arousal itself from Star to Jackie, because it didn't seem as if either of them was likely to finish before the other. It hadn't worked that way when they had seen Star and Tom together, not quite. But maybe it had to do with proximity, or sight, or time. He could hear Jackie's noises becoming louder and louder, and he knew for a fact the mewman was practically there. He slowed down, just slightly, then, just moments after, speed up again.

He would be lying if he said having seen Star with Tom didn't bring out a competitive edge of sorts in him, to do better than Tom. 'Point Diaz' and all that. Not that he was ever going to tell his girlfriend that. Still, with such an advantage as feeling what Star felt, Marco could time this perfectly. Turning what could have been terribly frustrating, into deliciously frustrating. He played the princess like a fiddle, and where she went, Jackie followed. Up and down, up and down. More and more flustered, more and more loud, more and more desperate for release.

Until, finally, Marco drove it all the way up and kept it there until he felt the thighs around him tremble. The two most popular girls in school, the two girls he loved, came loudly in unison by his actions. He sat besides Star, and caressed her hair, as he looked smiling at Jackie, splayed on the chair. They were both panting, trying to recover their breath. Marco could have died then and it wouldn't have mattered, he would have died a legend.

They rested for a while, Marco and Star cuddling in bed. Jackie smiling at them from her post, still seemingly determined to her role as an onlooker, despite the special effects. After some time, Star and Marco began kissing and making out again. His hands running gently over her wings, hers tracing his chest and cupping his buttocks. He licked her breasts once more, causing her nipples to stand at attention. His finger found its way inside Star's sex, carefully readying it for what they all knew was coming. 

Delicious moments of anticipation passed, and then, he spoke, cockily, "Well, I think I am going to be fucking my two girlfriends now, if there is no objection."

Star pouted, and seemed to think, "Nah, can't think of one! Jackie?"

"Does that really count as fucking both of us, Marco? Or just Star?" the other girl asked, rolling her eyes playfully at him. "Not that I am complaining..."

\----

There was a strange sensation about this all, a subtle wrongness amidst all the wonder and excitement. But, then again, a subtle wrongness was always part of some of the better kinds of sex, in some form or another. Star was young, but she knew at least that much. 

Maybe it was just the effect of having Jackie watching, or the mewman herself not feeling entirely at ease with the ways they were testing the boundaries of the link. But hey, dark magic wasn't always a bad thing. That was one of the few positive lessons of the past few weeks. It was just magic you had to be a bit more careful with. Which, truth be told, she wasn't being right now, not in the least. But, in her defense, there was a young strapping boy, all lean muscles from karate training, currently pinning her down to the bed by her wrists and about to take her wildly, while his other girlfriend watched the whole performance. In Star's book, that excused great many lapses in magical caution.

She bit her lip. "Marco... I missed this," she stated.

"Me too, Star," he replied in a deep tone filled with want, and she felt him enter her again.

She looked into his eyes, and for a moment, nothing else existed. Not Sam and all of his hell. Not the creature that killed her mom. Not Janna. Not Tom. Not even Jackie, although Star would feel guilty to admit this later. She loved Marco. She wanted Marco. She needed Marco. He was the person that tied her to this world. She had come back to life, partly, because of him, and this, this was living. 

She reached for him through the link, making sure she could savor each of his sensations, as well as her own. The place where she ended and her lover begun was a blurred one, in more ways than one.

She felt her heart racing, as the boy begun sliding in and out from her. He filled her marvelously, and slid easily in her arousal. She bit her lip to prevent herself from moaning just yet, and let out a soft satisfied whimper instead. She was in heaven, or very nearly so, lost in amidst a sea of pleasurable sensations. The color of that sea was a bright shade of green.

There was, in the corner of her awareness, a voice. A voice that hardly mattered as her consciousness drifted atop waves of pleasure, her own as well as Marco's, as her body suffused with delicious heat. The voice was, strangely enough, Toffee's. 

"Hello, Star."

She ignored him. She wanted nothing to do with the lizard. In the back of her mind, alarms were going off like crazy, but there was a wall between that and her dreamlike state of bliss.

"You know this won't last, don't you?" he spoke in a detached neutral tone. "It is just the calm before the storm. Before you lead them into pain and into darkness once again, until you, and them, break against horrors untold. However, if you truly wish, if it is your full heart's desire... then, you and I, we can make this last forever."

This moment, this pleasure, this wicked storm of sensations, lasting forever... It would be the best thing Star could imagine. She knew, she knew deep inside her soul, that what the monster's voice was offering was wrong. But she still wanted it.

"Not just the moment, Star. Although that too, if you wish. I can make your love last forever. True love. Always changing, yet eternal, like the sky," he spoke. "You weren't even supposed to be still alive, but you are. You have done enough. You have fought enough. It's time for you to enjoy your happiness, for now and ever after."

It wasn't Toffee, Star realized. Not really. There was a wordless glowing pure truth behind the pretended voice. Something bright emerald and made of boundless hope. Something that wouldn't, couldn't, lie. The words spoken were only a part of the bargain it offered. In her mind, she understood its meaning completely. Sam was wrong, there were things that didn't have to end, and if Star wished it, if she desired it with all her heart, then the three of them would last forever, or long enough that it might as well be forever. She just had to give up... everything else.

What about her mom? Star thought. Or Sam's threat? Echo Creek and Mewni?

"Yes," admitted Toffee, "that will all be quite sad. But you'll have Marco, and Jackie too. Nothing can take them from you, not if your only wish is to have them, not if you give yourself over to that wish. You will have pleasure, and happiness, and love."

'Love'... the word, or the force behind it, dug up something inside Star's mind. Something that had gone half asleep, and that was now shrieking in terrified alarm. 'Love'... 'love, all-conquering'!

She opened her eyes to see Marco's own lost look of bliss. It was not one of sexual pleasure, nor was it the human (and mewman) emotion of joy, of happiness. It was something else, something numinous in the worst possible way. The entire room seemed completely flooded with emerald light, and the walls themselves shifted and blurred under a headache-inducing distortion. She twisted her head around to glance at a Jackie. She found herself staring into her empty glazed out eyes, as she seemed to look right through Star.

Then the princess noticed that she was much higher up than she should have been. It was not an out-of-body experience this time, as had been the case before with the link. She was literally hovering in mid air, with Marco just barely holding on to her, his body swinging around wildly like a rag doll, a vacant smiling look on his face. Her black and golden wings were half-extended, two extra sets of arms were in the process of growing from her torso. A mass of violet threads of energy extended out of her, merging with the viridescent magic that threatened to engulf them all. Whether her partially transforming body was welcoming or fighting the strange presence, she couldn't really tell. If it was the later, she was losing, badly.

Star realized her mistake then.

There had been a connection, between that time at Saint Olga's, between the way the All-Seeing Eye had misfired, and her mother's death. She had seen Mewni that night. She had seen a thing flying high above the night sky, along with all of the images of Marco and Jackie, of her and Tom. She had realized this after the funeral too, which is why she had been prepared to use the All-Seeing Eye spell not just to find her mother's killer, but to try to summon it to her. She knew, just as well, that the link, between Marco, Jackie, and her, was also tied to that spell. All three things connected back to each other, yet her mind had before refused, or perhaps it had been blocked, from making the connection, between that which touched the three of them, and the creature they had fought in Tom's hell.

It wasn't just dark magic used unwisely. It was much worse than that. It was an invitation. 

The being that killed her mother couldn't follow them inside Sam's domain, she had been confident of that. But if the link tied to it too, then it could attack them through it, from outside Sam's hell. It apparently had just been waiting for her to reach out through the connection, to pull harder and harder at the link between Marco and herself, to give it just this kind of opening. It was using it to do something to her, to all of them.

Well, it had no idea just who it was messing with! Star focused her mind on undoing the link, on tearing it apart, on severing her connection to the green phantasm. A few days ago that would have been impossible. But now, after coming back? Now it should be well within her powers. She struck at the intruding presence. She heard Marco shout in pain. Jackie fell to the floor, shivering as if from a terrible cold. She could feel what they felt, she knew she was hurting them now.

"Is that truly your choice, Star?" Toffee's disembodied voice remarked, coldly. "I doubt it."

Star hated that voice now. How dare he! How dare he make her do this. How dare he force himself into their moment of love and pleasure and turn it against them. She lashed against the being, with all of her fury and hate. Her wings extended, all six arms popped out entirely out of her torso, a violet brightness drowned out the green light. 

Marco and Jackie screamed in agony, and Star, terrified, stopped herself. 

Her incomplete transformation was now running in reverse, leaving her more and more vulnerable to the emerald malevolence.

It was utter smugness, self-satisfaction made sound, that coalesced as the monster's voice inside the princess head, "I see you understand your predicament, after all, Star. You can have their love on my terms... or their death on yours."

\----

One moment, Marco had felt on top of the world. Really, he was on top of Star, but at that time it had been almost the same thing. He had been happy. Not the kind of happiness that involves calm and tranquility, but the kind that involves excitement, and want, and hungry desire. The one that he could only feel as he gripped Star's body close, and drove in and out of it as if he wished for nothing more than to break the both of them, so that their pieces would end up joining together in an entirely new configuration.

The moment after, however, his mind had become like a fogged mirror, one in which he couldn't even find himself. There was no Marco, and no Star, and definitely nothing and no one else. There was only blissful tranquility. Love.

Then there was transient anger. Then brief pain. Then bliss again.

There was happiness, the calm kind of happiness. Something whispered to him that he should be happy, told him that all was alright. Someone was making a very important decision. A decision that would change his life forever. But they loved him. They would make the right decision. There was no other choice for them. He would be happy. Their love would last forever.

Then there was sadness.

Sadness despite the voice. Sadness that wasn't his. But, because it wasn't his, he was forced to remember the boundary of his own self. He was forced to remember who he was. He was Marco. The sadness wasn't from Marco. The sadness was from Star, and it was greater than sadness.

Star was despairing.

He opened his eyes in panic. He found himself face to face with a crying Star. All around them the room burned with emerald flames. Jackie stared at them vacantly.

"M-marco!" cried Star, her face twisted in horror. "A-are you ok? W-what have we done!? W-hat have I done? And... why are you glowing?"

The boy looked down at his hands, they glowed bright red. Actually, they reflected light. Not the green brightness that enveloped all of them now, but a fainter red light, a light that came from the window and seemed to touch only him. It was not the glow of the ever burning City of Dis. There was no flicker to it. It was a red glow the color of blood, lazily flowing down from the sky.

"Marco, I... I..." the princess seemed in shock. Her body floating in mid air, partly transformed into her six-armed butterfly form, partly still displaying her usual appearance. He realized he was out of her, but still holding her tightly in a naked hug. "Marco, I did this! The link, the sensations. It is not love! It was never love..."

"Star, calm down," he pleaded. "Just, relax. Tell me what's happening. Tell me what I can do to help you."

"I tricked you. I deceived you. I did something to you, to all of us," she cried. "The only reason you ever said my name when you were with Jackie was the stupid link..."

"What are you talking about?" Marco asked puzzled. Then he remembered, he remembered the night he said Star's name as he made love to Jackie. Later he would learn that it had been the same night Star and Tom had first slept together, and that whatever magical connection they shared had made him see glimpses of that. "Star, that doesn't matter. I know what happened that night, it doesn't change how I feel about you! I thought we had already talked about that."

The link. The connection. The All-Seeing Eye. The green flames. It was all starting to fit together in Marco's head as well. He looked carefully at Star and saw that her cheekmarks were glowing emerald, a sickly green hue creeping all through her skin. He looked around. Jackie had the same tone. All was suffused in greenness except for him.

"You don't get it Marco, you really really don't," Star cried. "It can make you love me now, for all time. Do you understand that? Do you get what that means? It will kill you if I say no, it will kill Jackie too. But if it can make our love last forever... then how do I know it wasn't it that made you love me in the first place? That night, with the spell, it could have been my doing..."

"Star, I don't understand half of what you are saying, but..." the human boy held her tightly, trying in vain to keep her safe from the emerald glow. "... I loved you before that night, before you ever saw me and Jackie together, before you casted the spell. I hadn't quite realized it then. But I did. Jackie saw it. Hell, even before Jackie... that night, when you went to the Blood Moon Ball with Tom, I was, well, I was jealous. It felt just like yesterday felt. I am not saying jealousy is good, and you can definitely love someone just as deeply without being jealous. Jackie taught me that. But, still, I don't think I could have been as worried as I was about loosing you that night... to harm... or to someone else... if I didn't love you even then."

Wait, the Blood Moon Ball! That was it! He had been worried about Star, and he had crashed her date with Tom. Star had told him about what happened there, before Marco arrived. About Tom wanting something to happen during the dance, something about the moon, and their souls, and some weird thing with fingers interlocking. Something clicked in his mind, something that had needed him to remember how rituals worked, and how prophecies were made. To know that there was an old kind of magic, a magic of barter, of treaty, of compact. A magic that dealt with ancient powers and which could join two souls as one.

"Let me make something clear, Star: I loved you before that day too! I cared for you from almost the day I first met you. That love has grown since then, of course. I won't say I felt the same for you then as I do now, but it was still there back then. It was definitely there before I went to the underworld to find you that night of your date with Tom," Marco explained. "But aside from that, if this green shimmering crap wants to magically link us for all eternity, it better get in line... Because we are already joined that way!"

The red light flowing down from the window, the light of the Blood Moon, the moon of lovers, the moon that was 666.5 years too early in a sky that had never before seen any moon, passed through Marco's body and into Star's. A cocoon of bright crimson light surrounded them, and it broke through the emerald brightness that had been gripping Star. She let a startled gasp, and looked at Marco in confusion. Her earlier distress was mostly gone. She almost begun to smile, until she saw his own frown.

This wasn't over. There was still one problem, and this time, the same solution wasn't going to work. Was it?

Marco turned around to look at Jackie, still collapsed at the feet of her chair. The green light seemed to all flow towards her now. She looked to be in pain, clutching at her chest and trembling. She opened her eyes to see Marco and Star embracing in mid air, then doubled down in agony as green flames sprouted all around her. "Marco!"

Dragging Star by the hand, he swam in mid air towards her. It was as if the light of the Blood Moon was canceling not only the malignant presence of the green brightness, but also gravity itself. "Jackie, hold on!"

He offered his hand. Jackie grabbed it. Nothing happened. The red light still surrounded him and Star, while the green one covered a shivering Jackie.

"Take mine!" offered Star as well. Jackie did. Still nothing.

Marco hugged Jackie, and Star did the same. The two naked teens held their friend, their girlfriend, close to them. He could feel what Star felt once more, and he knew they both wanted to protect her, to have her be safe. They both loved Jackie. Sure, perhaps not both in the same way, but they both did, with all their hearts. Marco realized that, as much as he loved Star, as much as it was true he had always loved Star, he loved Jackie just as much.

"Look, Blood Moon or whatever it is you want me to call you, I don't know how any of this works. I don't know if it is even possible..." he muttered under his breath. "But if there is any price I can pay, any bargain I can enter in, any ancient ritual or promise I can speak, that will save them both, then please please let it be so," he begged.

"I know it is way too greedy. So, if you need to take my life or whatever to balance this out, then, by all means, go ahead. But please, let Jackie and Star both be alright... please..." he cried. "...Please..."

It was not a ritual, or a spell, or an incantation. It was prayer.

\----

Jackie had already been somewhat uneasy when Marco and Star begun fucking. Well, they had been fucking for a while, depending what you did or didn't count as fucking. But, like, the last part, the penetration part, 'fucking proper' so to speak. It was not something she had ever before expected to see. She didn't know if she would feel bad seeing it, or left out, or whatever. For the most part, it had been kind of tense, but mostly cool to see. It was obvious that Star and Marco really loved, and desired, one another, and that was not a bad thing.

Not, that is, until the green light begun seeping out through the floor and ceiling, and the walls around them. At first, Jackie just felt really out of it. She felt Star's and Marco's sensations, but also a creepy feeling of unnatural calm that seemed to come from someone or something else. Then, pain, excruciating pain, being-tossed-like-a-rag-doll-by-Sam levels of pain.

She had seen Marco and Star embrace, become surrounded by a warm red glow as she shivered with cold. The emerald flames around her seemed not to burn her, but to freeze her, and she was certain that very second that she had her answer. Marco loved Star, and he was discarding her instead, leaving Jackie to die. That's what the green cold thing whispered to her.

"Marco!" she cried out for help. Then she was forced to shut her eyes as she doubled down in pain.

Her own feelings became twisted and turned inside out. Seeing the other two teens had been fun, and naughty, and cute, and hot, if only a bit nerve-wracking. Now it felt like a betrayal. She had pushed them together and they had left her behind, thrown her away as soon as she was no longer needed. She was not even the nice to have to Marco anymore, she was the spare piece.

Wait, what? That made no fucking sense! It was obvious to anyone with just the bare minimum powers of observation that that was not what was going on at all. Marco had said it, just a few hours ago: he had never wanted to leave her on Earth, which had been most of her basis for her whole 'he likes Star better' case. He had just not wanted to pressure her into putting herself in danger, but still needed her there. And the two of them fucking? She had asked for that! And they had gone out of their way to make her feel included. Even if making her feel included involved what she now suspected could be fairly termed 'the dark arts'. Something was messing with her head, and frankly, after Sam and his costumes, Jackie was starting to get real tired of people messing with her head.

She opened her eyes a second time, and realized that Star and Marco were both holding on to her, crying, and Marco was muttering something under his breath. She looked up at them, at the red light floating down on them, and smiled. They did care about her. Marco loved her. Star loved her. And Jackie loved them both back.

Somehow, when she looked down, she was glowing red too. Slowly, the green flames, the emerald shimmer, begun fading, leaving the room untouched, and them unharmed. 

She hugged Star and Marco, and kissed one or both of them. Later, she couldn't recall which was it, exactly.

\----

"Ok, so, any of you care to explain what just happened?" Jackie asked finally.

They had been laying on the floor, even after the red light had stopped shining through the window, huddled up together for what had felt like hours. It probably hadn't been that long, not even close, but it had felt, well, eternal. Either way, it was still too much to process.

"I... I almost got us all killed," spoke Star in a soft apologetic tone, "again."

"Oh."

"And, well," Marco continued. The predominant texture of his voice was one of uncertainty, but it was far from the only emotion it carried. "I believe we all got our souls bound together in an ancient love ritual. But that's probably mostly a good thing. I think...?"

"Oh."

Jackie blinked. Then she realized that her back hurt.

"Well, could we at least get up from the floor and into the bed?"

She noted that all three of them blushed right as she said that. She hadn't meant it that way. Had she?

\----

It took Marco and Star a while to agree entirely on an interpretation of what had just happened, while Jackie mostly listened at them, dumbfounded. After they were done, she tried her best to summarize their version, "So, essentially, that spell Star cast back then, the link thing, it also links us, or linked us, to the green flame monster from hell from the other day?"

"Yeah," Star answered, uncertainly, "I think so." 

The princess frowned, as if she knew there was something there that didn't quite fit. Jackie considered asking about how this tied to what had happened to her mom, but thought better of it. The mewman felt guilty enough about that as it was. Jackie hoped there was a less disturbing explanation there than any of the ones that suggested themselves to her in the back of her mind; one in which Star's spell had not, somehow, led to Moon's death. It just didn't seem fair.

"Ok, and it tried to attack us, through that link." the human girl continued. "But somehow Marco remembered that the two of your have yet another magical bond, that you got before that one... which, by the way, Marco Diaz, is the kind of thing you generally should disclose to a girl before accepting to be her boyfriend!"

She gave him a playful punch in the arm. Whatever it took to get their thoughts away from the darkest aspects of their situation, at least for now.

"Ouch," he complained. "I mean, I didn't understand that at the time, it's only in retrospect that it clicked together, Jackie."

"Also," Star added, helpfully, "I think you are also magically bonded to Marco now, or, maybe, to both of us?"

She looked at Marco, who shrugged.

"Again," Jackie rolled her eyes, "that's the kind of thing I might have wanted to have had a say in, honestly."

"Sorry, Jackie!" the boy apologized. "I panicked. I couldn't think of what else to do..."

She liked Marco, like really really liked him, and this whole Blood Moon thing had been yet another thing that Marco and Star had between the two of them, to which Jackie was initially an outsider. If she had learned about it before what had just happened, she perhaps might have wished to have something like that with him too. But, still, it was the principle of the thing, if nothing else. Involuntary soul bondage was the kind of stuff that she felt one ought to be opposed to as a general rule. Not that she could really be angry at Marco, of course. After all, he had probably saved her life.

"How about Star's wand?" the skateboarder girl pointed out. She felt a bit ungrateful, but she had to ask.

"Jackie, I tried to fight it with magic," Star explained. "It was using you as hostages, though. I think I could have beat it, but not without seriously hurting both of you. I was ready to give up before Marco intervened," she admitted. "Also, I guess neither of us got a choice back then either. This is actually my first time learning about any sort of soul bond... Although I guess that demon priest did sort of hint at it... with the whole 'Mhmmm' thing." As she said that, Star did a weird gesture where she brought both hands together in front of her, slowly interlocking her fingers. "Back then I thought he was talking about sex and just thought we didn't know about it or something!"

"And it doesn't bother you? The soul bond thing?" Jackie raised an eyebrow. "Either of you?"

"Well, Jackie..." Star said thoughtfully. "Like, don't tell Tom or anything, he really is a great guy, but, I am mostly relieved it was Marco and not him..."

"I..." Marco stammered. "I am sorry if I forced this on you two, both of you. I don't think the bond means we need to be together if you two don't want, or anything. I guess I personally don't regret it on my end. But, well, I would regret it if you two regret it. Does that make sense?"

Jackie smiled. Ok, fine, there were far worse people to be magically entangled with than those two. She relaxed.

Then, turning to face Marco, she smirked at him.

"'Don't regret it'? Just that? Marco, you somehow claimed two innocent girls' souls as your own and are, I am sure, quite proud of it!" After witnessing him and Star, and sensing Marco's emotions through the link, Jackie knew his feelings far too well to let him feign innocence on that count. "Remind me, between you and Tom, who was the demon again?" 

"I didn't..." Marco blushed, uneasy.

"You fiend!" exclaimed Star dramatically, interrupting the boy. She brought both hands to her naked chest and pretended to faint, before dissolving in a fit of giggles. "You tricked us!"

"I... I am sorr... wait, what?" he exclaimed.

Jackie just rolled herself atop him and kissed him, pressing against his naked torso. It seemed like the thing to do. "Well, Marco, what are you going to do with the two maidens whose fate you have chained to yours?"

He looked up surprised, if only for a second. Then he got the idea and begun pulling loose the strings of the crappy potato sack that was the damn slave costume. Once he got it down to her waist, he began leisurely roaming his hands over her naked breasts. "I think I have an idea or two about that..." he confessed. She bit her lip and enjoyed the tingle of anticipation, loosing herself in his eyes until...

"Whoa, Marco, look at the size of those two!" exclaimed Star suddenly, in mock surprise. It was only then that Jackie remembered the mewman was there with them, and she was staring at the human girl's breasts. She was, also, rather crudely mirroring the position of Marco's hands in the air, well ahead of her own chest. Jackie blushed.

"Ah, I guess I should have asked you if this was ok, Star. Specially after what just..." the human girl trailed off, as the princess crawled around her in the bed, and then begun pulling down the slave costume fully away from her. "Star? What are you doing?"

The mewman's naked body drew closer to her. She whispered cheerfully into Jackie's ear, "getting you ready for Marco to fuck the here out of you."

'Well, yeah,' Jackie thought, 'this is happening'. Not that anyone had failed to see it coming.

Star and Marco kissed each other as he played with Jackie's boobs. Soon after, he flipped her around, the princess body rotating along Jackie's own. They ended up with her laying on Star's lap, with Marco on top on the opposite side. The mewman held both of the human girl's arms up above her head and down towards the bed, as the boy teased her breasts with his tongue. Jackie closed her eyes and let herself dissolve into the delicious minutes that followed.

"So, Marco, what's your favorite, melons or strawberries?" asked the princess at one point.

The boy had the common sense of giving an unintelligible muffled response to that. Jackie proudly puffed her chest forward, drawing a chuckle from the girl behind her. Hey, if Star was going to keep bringing that up, she was happy to raise to the bait.

Moments later, they all shuffled again, this time having Marco sit down as Star and Jackie briefly made a show of both giving him a blowjob, licking up and down the shaft on either side, taking turns to take his cock into each of their mouths. The girl didn't need any magical link to tell her that they were fulfilling one of the teenage boy's dearest and most unbearably cliche fantasies with that act. She was only too happy to oblige, and so, apparently, was Star.

Next, it was Marco's turn to go down on Jackie. He begun slowly, methodically, like he always did, but picked up the pace quickly. Between the memories of what she had just seen earlier, and the novelty factor of the extra person situation, the human girl did not need much of a warm-up before she was panting breathlessly from Marco's attentions. It didn't help that the other girl kept playing with the boy's hair as she stared at his head between Jackie's legs. 

"Looks like he really thinks you are tasty," the princess commented, mock innocently. She kissed Marco on the forehead softly. Meanwhile, Marco's tongue avidly explored Jackie's cunt, driving her wild. Fuck it, Star, that stuff just wasn't fair!

Jackie actually pulled the princess up into a kiss in her excitement, partly to thank her for being such an amazing sport, partly because, damn it, if they were breaking all the taboos tonight, then she wanted to get this one out of the way too. She concluded that, overall, Marco was still more of her thing, but she had to admit Star's lips were a lot softer than the boy's. 

Marco's lips, by the way, were very gently sucking on her clit. In a way, it reminded her of the telepathically shared blowjob experience, and that thought, combined with the rather more intense sensation, almost made Jackie come right there.

Star retrieved a pink condom from god knows where, and put it on Marco. Jackie was so far out of it at the time that, even later, she would never be able to recall how the mewman pulled that off. It was weird, though, since the princess hadn't used one before. Then, Jackie realized, as Star got out of the way and lied on the far side of the bed, that this was for her own benefit. She glanced at Star, then at Marco, and blushed.

"So, Marco, two girls in one night," Star beamed, "Up to the challenge, my wild man?"

The boy smiled. Jackie motioned for him to come closer and opened her legs invitingly. Soon, he was atop her, and she felt him align against her entrance. Then, slowly, he plunged deep inside of her.

"So, Marco, I never got to ask over the spell the other time: How does it feel to be fucking your longtime crush?" Star asked. She was really getting into this. "We sure have come a long way from a nod, I think! Remind me, what step of your plan was this? Twenty-three? Twenty-two?"

Wait, Star knew about the nod thing? Ah, of course she knew! Marco must have told her about his feelings for Jackie before he told Jackie herself!

"Come on Marco, harder! Harder! Make her beg for mercy!" cheered on Star. Not that Jackie minded when the boy did, in fact, listen to the mewman, and picked up a rather athletic pace. "You are fucking Jackie, remember? You know, the girl of your dreams? How many times did you jerk off thinking of this, Marco? Now she is all yours. Fuck her like you mean it! Fuck Jackie. Lynn. Thomas!"

'Yeah, Star, say my name', thought Jackie with a chuckle. Seriously, what had gotten into princess potty-mouth over there?

Either way, right now, Jackie was more interested in what was getting into her. She was starting to lose track of the very flow of time, quickly approaching an explosive climax that was only made the most powerful by the events before now, and by Star's enthusiastic, if somewhat aggressive, encouragement.

The mewman princess licked one of her fingers slowly, and moved to hug Marco from behind. Giving Jackie and impish look, she stuck her hand between the boy's buttocks and whispered something in his ear.

Jackie felt Marco's cock throb inside her as he came, and an instant later she was right there with him, trembling once more, but this time in satisfied ecstasy.

After that, she vaguely recalled Marco going to the bathroom, and all three of them hugging and kissing, and then falling asleep together in some amorphous three way cuddle-orgy. Jackie concluded that, as far as first time threesome experiences went, this hadn't been half bad, even if you accounted for being interrupted by a fiery cosmic horror half-way through. If you didn't count that part, it had been fucking amazing!

Right then, in that brief moment, it truly seemed like things might just end up being alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, this one _was_ the threesome chapter, and the last bit of smut we will get for a good long while.
> 
>  **Coming up next:** _Chapter 29 Victory March_


	29. Victory March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which awkward moments are had, a speech is made, our heroes fly out of hell, and there is a murder of crows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this is a long chapter. Almost certainly the longest in Part III.

Ten-thousand Steps Mountain got its name from the many irregular footholds forming the narrow staircase chiseled along its steep western face. The Kneeling Gardener got its name, instead, from its shape - a curved pinnacle of bare rock resembling a crouching giant - and from the beautiful lush meadows it overlooked to the south. Night Peak Mountain got its name from the black barren stone that adorned its tall cliff. Crow Temple Mountain got its name from the abandoned shrine at the top, and the monster that inhabited it.

They were all one and the same.

Every month, the day before the full moon, two or three young men and women from the village below, bravely and voluntarily, would go up the mountain. One or two would come back down the next day. The remaining one would stay there, as an offering to the beast. Those not kept never spoke of what happened up there, other than to report that their companion had died, and to describe the fearsome form of the crow.

It was recalled by the eldest among the villagers in Xoth'kaul that, one time, many years ago, the volunteer offerings failed to arrive to the top, and so too failed the spares to return. Perhaps, gripped by a sudden vile cowardice, they made a pact to flee the valley together. Perhaps they fell to their deaths while trying to climb the treacherous steps. Be as it might, the crow descended upon the village the next night, the night after the full moon. He passed unseen among houses and walkways, leaving no living witness. Instead, in its wake, it left dead men and frozen trees, and a trail of huge black feathers. Since then, none among their number had dared let a month pass without a suitable sacrifice to the crow.

Xoth'kaul always sent its young, rather than its elderly. While many old men and women in the village would have been happy to sacrifice themselves to spare those who still had a longer life ahead of them, the difficulty of the journey made that act impractical. Instead, the village settled on a traditional rite of passage: Go to the crow before becoming an adult, before you have wifes or husbands to miss you, or children to be made orphans. Go to the crow in groups, never by yourself, so there is a chance of being spared. If the beast turns you down, then you will never have to make the climb again, your duty forever fulfilled.

Marco had no children, and he had no one left that would miss him. Nachos perhaps, but she would be alright. Hekapoo would probably just shrug, make some remark about how he lasted longer than she expected, note how absolutely stupid it was that it was the crow, of all things, who got him, and call it a decade. Truth be told, Marco was not part of Xoth'kaul, or its compulsory death pact. He was a stranger in these lands and had stayed only one night in the forest village. He had learned about the crow only yesterday, a tale told to him by one of the village elders in exchange for a tale of his own. He had no reason to make the climb, no reason to involve himself at all with a situation that everyone else down there regarded as a sad but necessary fact of life. They had not asked for his help.

 **"So, why are we doing this, then, you dumbass?"** spoke his companion aloud, replying to his thoughts. They sat in front of the creepy oaken sanctuary atop Ten-thousand Steps Mountain, waiting for dusk.

The cursed monster arm knew the answer, and not just because it could read Marco's mind. They had this conversation often, actually. It was a way to pass the time. Was talking to yourself still crazy if there really were two people inside you? What if, strictly speaking, you didn't need to talk aloud to hear one another but did it anyways?

"Because, that is what we do, Kar. We wander from town to town and country to country, we ask for stories, hoping it is something relevant to wherever the hell Hekapoo is hiding. When it inevitably turns out to be an unrelated bit about their local man-eating monster, we seek it out, and we kill it for them," he shrugged. "Because we are fucking heroes, or something."

 **"Because we have a death wish, more likely,"** replied the mouth on his arm, with a toothy grin.

"It's the same damn thing," Marco shot back, bitterly.

 **"Well, I for one am glad to see my optimism is rubbing off on you,"** Kar retorted. **"Speaking of which: Did you notice it is not a full moon tonight, idiot? What if the fucking bird doesn't show up? We wait up here for a week?"**

Fortunately, Marco never did have to answer that question. A strong wind blew around them that very moment, and the temperature seemed to drop a full ten degrees. The temple had no doors or walls, only a rooftop supported by four pillars covering a plain wooden floor. There had been nothing on that floor an instant ago, but now, it was covered in black feathers. They peeled off from the oak panels on the ground, shadows gaining volume and shape of their own. They floated around in a whirlwind, blocking Marco's sight.

He sprung up, and set himself in a ready stance, but did not attack, not until he knew what he was facing.

When the freezing wind stopped blowing, he saw himself face to face with the crow. It was huge. Twice as tall as the warrior himself, and its wings were even longer. It looked at Marco quizzically. The former guildmaster noticed he could see through the creature's body. A ghost, or a spirit. Great.

"It is not time yet, and you are not one of the children. Why then have you come?" heard Marco, although the bird's beak remained closed.

"I am Marco of Zonst, Marco of Averx, Marco of K'Ahleh," he introduced himself. "I am here to end your murderous ways!"

"Murder? My brethren are as numerous as the stars, but my killings only one per moon," the spirit answered. "I take only as many as are needed, as the children and I agreed long ago. It is their deal to make or end, not yours, and it is entirely by their choice that I nest on this peak."

 **"That's not what we heard,"** remarked Kar. 

But Marco was already moving past the point of debate. He brought both hands forward, repeated a few ancient words and begun the motions of a ritual he seldom got to use. As the magic clicked into place, the creature's body seemed to become bright with a restless light and the world around them grayer and duller by comparison. Marco could see the crow's essence flowing slowly all through the shape of the being, in strange unearthly colors: a bright shade of black, a freezing crimson red, a purple beyond any purple found in the world of the living. It was obviously a spirit. It was too large and too alien to be a ghost.

The warrior pushed his two closed fists forward and held them in front of him. Without touching the crow, he forced its wings to spread open as far as he could. It cawed as Marco pinned it there, in mid air, his own will opposing that of the dark spirit. He didn't need to touch it. Physical space was irrelevant to the ritual. It was mind and soul that fought the creature, not body. The movements, however, guided the brain through the required states. Muscle memory supplemented pure concentration, thought followed action. They constituted a forming exercise, an external kata to focus his inner strength.

All around him, the small plateau around the temple became bright, lit up by hundreds of small shimmering spheres of white light. Most were the size of ping pong balls, a few slightly bigger, up to the size of a large orange. Having used the Exorcism Ritual before, Marco knew them for what they were: souls. Human souls, all trapped here by the crow, bound to the mountain, held from their next journey. 

The warrior frowned with anger and determination.

If there was something Allion had hammered into him when she taught him the Exorcism Ritual, if there was something that he had seen again and again as he used the ritual to chase possessing ghosts out of places and people, was the pain that a soul experienced when it wasn't allowed to move on. A soul weighted with regret often stayed on this world, it clung to it until it became a ghost, mad with grief and pain. It was a fate worse than death. The Exorcism Ritual allowed one to free those afflicted with such unbearable condition, to take upon the weight into your own soul, while allowing the one forming the ghost to finally move beyond. It was a great mercy, with a heavy cost that was due only at the day of your own death.

The worst part, however, was that none of these souls seemed particularly heavy. They all looked like the kind of soul that should have moved on, that would have floated away on their own lightness. These weren't angry ghosts. These were innocent people held back from reincarnation by whatever kind of hellish being the crow was. Marco let his rage turn towards the bird.

The Exorcism Ritual wasn't only used to dispel ghosts. It could be used to interact with anything and everything immaterial, such as, say, a spirit. Your determination replaced your physical force, your ingenuity became your reach, your sense of self was your armor. Taking a deep breath, Marco punched at the crow's chest with his mind, just as he pushed his outstretched fist in its direction, albeit at a distance. He clawed at the spirit's center, pressing into it and burying a quality of sharpness until he cut through its non-material substance, splattering his own soul with the black phantasmal ichor of psychic butchery. A karmic evil, yet, clearly, the lesser one.

The crow's bright unearthly colors faded to black, even under the sight given by the ritual. It exploded into a snowfall of coal-black feathers.

Instantly, Marco heard a hundred sobbing cries all around him. They were not the joyful cries of the liberated. They were the sorrowful cries of those left orphan. They were the accusing cries of those who witnessed a terrible crime. The souls around him bloated into the size of ox heads, and became gray with heavy regret.

"You didn't listen..." spoke a young man's voice.

"... we were the gardeners... the crow was our teacher... our patron..." added another.

"Didn't know... couldn't know..." corrected a young woman.

"Doesn't matter. Our children and grandchildren will pay the price," retorted another.

"So will he... His soul is heavy as the mountain," a woman.

"Not just for this act alone," a man.

Marco looked horrified through the cliff, as the light of the waxing moon illuminated the forest below. Once vibrantly green and flush with life, it was quickly drying. It was as if fall and winter both advanced upon it in the span of a few minutes. Marco knew, he knew, that spring would never again come to the Kneeling Gardener's valley. That was the deal the crow had tried to explain, he realized, the other end of the bargain, an abundance and warmth purchased in blood.

"His soul is heavy with destiny, and with love."

"It will sink." 

"We must pity him."

"We must pity us."

"Never pity the dead, but the living. We must pity our children, and grandchildren, and the children of their lines. The crow took us one per moon, but now hunger will take them all..."

Marco woke up startled, heart still racing from the memory of the dream, or, perhaps, the dream of a terrible memory. He slowly realized where he was: back in Star's room. The princess and Jackie were both asleep next to him, one certain mewman foot in his face. Only then did he begin to calm down.

\----

Sam's accursed ballroom was the last place any of them wished to find themselves back in. Star more so than any of her friends. After all, she had actually died in here. There was a certain nasty aftertaste whenever you went back to any place in which you had previously suffocated to death, never mind the fact that she had apparently been burned to ashes shortly after. Look, it was super creepy, alright?

Still, it was one of the few places inside the damned castle - literally damned, Star supposed - that they all knew how to find. It was either here or back in her own room and, frankly, the princess felt more mortified hosting Tom and Janna there than in the huge marble-tiled ballroom. Look, dying was awkward too, but how was she supposed to deliver any sort of serious speech while sitting in the bed she had just had a threeway in?

"Hey, Star, Marco, Jackie!" Tom greeted them as he walked into the room through one of the side staircases. He was forcing a smile, badly. "Friends, buddies, pals! Did you all sleep well last night? Ah, I mean, not that is any of my business how any of you slept... no, wait, that sounded wrong... I am just asking if you are rested, that's all... Of course, if you didn't rest that's fine too, I just..."

"Tom!" Star interrupted him, blushing a deep shade of red. His rambling was only making things worse.

"Ah, sorry, Star," he apologized, then seemed to calm down. "I'll... I’ll just shut up now."

Jackie walked towards the demon prince with an unreadable expression in her face. 

She was back in her white and green t-shirt and shorts. The nacre scabbard to her left, and the belt that supported it, were the only changes from her usual Echo Creek outfit. They were all back to their normal clothes, actually, all three of them. Star had conjured those this morning, rather than have them all go back into Sam's costumes. So far they had not heard any complains from the devil about that; nor anything else from him, for that matter. Not that Star herself minded not seeing Sam’s smug face ever again. 

The mewman supposed she should do the same for Tom, who was, after all, still wearing the scoundrel outfit. But before she could offer, Jackie stopped right in front of him. She raised a hand as if she were about to slap him, and then, well, she just held it there.

Tom looked dumbfounded at the human girl.

"Hey, dude, don't leave me hanging," she spoke. "High five!"

Tom blinked. Then, tentatively, he returned the gesture, softly clapping his own hand against the girl's raised palm, "Ok, sure, high five... but, um, why?"

"Well, we have both been in bed with Star," Jackie winked at the demon, and at the mewman herself. "Figured you might want to welcome me to the club!"

"Jackie!!" Star shouted, annoyed. 

She wasn’t ashamed of last night or anything. But maybe still a bit self-conscious. It just wasn’t the way she had expected this meeting to start, ok? Besides, what Jackie just said could easily be taken to imply a lot more than what had actually happened! 

She turned towards Tom, "It's actually not like that! I mean Jackie and I," It wasn't. Was it? Well, it sort of was, and it sort of wasn't. "... look, we were both with Marco, just, well, at the same time, and..."

The demon looked from the human girl to her, first shocked, then amused. He broke out into a nervous chuckle. Jackie grinned at this. 

"Way too much information, the both of you!" declared Tom. However, he seemed a lot more relaxed than before. The smile he wore now was the genuine article. 

"Fair enough, dude. But, in all seriousness, are you doing alright?" asked Jackie. "You are not like, secretly still pining after Star or anything like that, right? Because, trust me, either way, it is usually better to just be honest with this sort of stuff." As she spoke, her eyes shifted ever so slightly to her right in a nervous glance.

"What? No, nothing like that!" Tom replied. He turned back towards the mewman. "I swear. Really. Look, obviously I care about you, Star, a lot, and that hasn’t changed. But, I meant what I said last night. It’s just, well, it’s a bit awkward, you know? Being the third... err... fourth wheel...? Also, that is one idiom that just doesn’t work in this sort of situation."

"Awww, Tom!" spoke the princess, suddenly realizing that she was not the only one for whom this meeting was weird. "Sorry if we all left you alone last night, after all that happened. I don't think I would have liked to spend the night alone in this super creepy castle..." Star realized, perhaps a bit too late. "Wow. That kinda stunk on our part, actually. Sorry."

"Heh, Star. Don’t sweat it. I am a demon, a prince of the underworld, remember?" Tom gave her his patented 'trying to look cool' grin. "This is downright cozy for me! It takes quite a lot spook me-eeeeehh...!"

Tom jumped up as one of the huge balcony windows opened inwards behind him with a thunderclap. A long shadow seemed to flow down into the terrace then. It came from somewhere up in the roof of the castle, and it coalesced into a pool of oily black ichor. The puddle of inky blackness caught fire then, and, from the midst of the blue fames, a cowled figure emerged.

"Ok, are we leaving or what?" asked the witch, impatiently, as she smothered the last of the blue embers with her foot.

"Well, we were actually waiting for you, Janna," replied Star unfazed. She took a deep breath and turned serious for a moment. "Look, people, now that we are all here, this part is important, alright? I am just going to say this one last time: none of you have to come with me!"

Marco was the first to open his mouth to protest. But the princess raised her hand, and they all felt silent in response. It helped that her expression really did mean business now. It helped that her hand was holding the magic wand. It helped that the crystal in the middle of the wand had once again melted into a very realistically star-like ball of golden fire, spinning inside the scepter's head. Apparently, it could do that.

"I mean it!" Star admonished. "You can all still go back. I think I can give you a way to go back. I know you all want to say no, either because you want to help me, or because you want to protect those at home that would be hurt if I fail... Oh, right! Tom, Janna, I didn't tell you yet! Well, the short of it is that Sam will destroy Earth and Mewni, and the local underworld, and a bunch of other places, if I don't kill the thing that killed my mother..." Star frowned. Clearly she was fumbling this speech of hers. 

"The point is: He is forcing me to do it, not you," she continued, nonetheless. "Chances are that, if you do go with me, you are risking your life. Even in the cases where we win, where I win, you could get hurt, you could die. In the last twenty-four hours, you all came close to dying, some of you two or three times, and it has all been, at least in part, because of me. I don't want to... I can't keeping putting you at risk like that."

She sighed, anticipating their objections.

"I know I can't force you not to come with me, and won't turn away your help or close off from you if you insist on helping. I won't even say I don't appreciate it," she admitted. "But, please, think of your friends, think of your families, think how they would feel if you don't come back... Let's all do the thing none of us has been any good at doing so far, and think carefully about the risks we are taking... If you are sure, then I promise I won't ask again. But, please, really think about it."

They stayed silent for a few seconds.

"Done thinking," Marco spoke first. "And no fucking way, Star. I am not leaving you to face this alone, no matter what happens."

"Ditto," spoke Jackie. "Look, you ask us to think about our families. Well, we are. Again, if you fail because we weren't there, then our parents and friends will die too. And, well," she took the glass sword out of the scabbard, "I didn't just get this thing to hang it on a wall back home. Say what you will about Sam, but I think he already knows exactly where we are going to need it..."

"And on that unassailable bit of logic," Tom spoke, "I am in too. For you, Star, as a friend, and for my parents too. Besides, I am way tougher to kill than any of you. It’s not even like I am taking the same risks you three are. I’ll be fine."

Janna stood there, silent. As all eyes turned towards her, she said, smiling, "Oh, me? I am only tagging along until we get out of this place. I don't want to stay here, and I don't want to go back home anymore either, particularly if you four fucking up means there won't be a home to go back to anyways. So I guess I am with you all until we hit the next dimension. After that, I am going my own way. I am done..." she looked at Star, then at Tom, "... with all of you."

\----

Star kept her word about respecting their choice in the matter, once she was convinced they had all thought things through. Marco was relieved. Either way he was going to follow Star to the ends of the multiverse if needed be, but he'd much rather not have to keep making the same case over and over again. They all knew the risks, but that was only the more reason as to why there was just no way he would abandon Star to face them alone. He would be there for her, no matter what, and he knew she would do the same for him.

In a way, last night was emblematic of that fact. Star had rescued them all from Sam. Then, later, when the green weirdness had gone after them, it had been Marco's quick thinking about the Blood Moon Ball that had freed them. Well, they might have not been in danger then if not for the link between them, so Star would never have been in trouble if Marco hadn't been there in the first place... Ok, fine, maybe it was a bad example. Still, he wanted to be there to help Star, and there was nothing she could say or do that would change his mind about that.

All five of them now soared through the sky above the labyrinthine stone bridges and rivers of fire of Sam's domain. To their relief, the devil himself hadn't shown up to stop them, or to 'say goodbye', or to screw with them further in any way. Star, Jackie, Tom, and Marco, all rode atop the spookiest pack of flying unicorns he had ever seen. Having lived with Star for a year, he had no small experience with scary-looking unicorns. He was becoming somewhat of an expert on those, really. Yet these were something else entirely. 

They were a cross between the undead horse that had pulled Tom's carriage and the ones that got summoned by Star's Warnicorn Stampede. They were no skeletons, but they were almost thin enough to be. Each was covered in leathery black skin, clinging close to muscular legs and gaunt bodies, the rib cage visible through the emaciated flesh. The head was downright cadaveric, filled with scars and crowned by a long sharp horn, which looked as if made of forged iron. From their flanks sprouted long dragon-like wings. Despite their famished shape, they all had an unearthly air of terrifying strength about them as they glided through the sky. Each horse was clad in black steel armor. Their eyes glowed with violet fire.

Back at Sam's castle, Star had conjured everyone a hefty breakfast, which they happily ate. Not long after that, she had lifted her wand and the golden sun inside of it had turned into a sphere of purple fire as she muttered some long incantation that he couldn't quite follow. Out of nowhere, five of the monstrous horses had appeared before them. Marco still remembered the gelid breath of the shadowy beast on his face, and wondered if the thing was even warmblooded. 

Star had just jumped atop her own horse with a cheerful cry of "Yay Horsie!" and a disquieting glee in her eyes. 

Eventually, they each had mounted one, some more reluctantly than others. All, that is, except Janna.

Instead of accepting Star's spell as her ride, Janna had taken a step back from it, placed her left hand atop her own heart, and let out a horrifying howl. They all heard the sound of cracking bones and twisting flesh, and then the ripping of fabric as two huge bat-like wings emerged from behind the witch's cloak. They were the exact same color of Janna's own skin, and smeared with small patches of dried blood. After seeing _that_ , Star's flying horses didn't seem that creepy anymore.

Marco tugged on the reigns of his ride, and guided it gently closer to where Jackie was flying. Frankly, it was no Nachos, but he was slowly getting used to the Hell Pegasus or whatever it was.

"Hey, Diaz!" she greeted him with a wave, gently guiding her own mount with the remaining hand. "Is riding a flying horse the coolest or what?"

"It's pretty neat, I suppose," he said noncommittally, wondering if there was any way for him to give Jackie a ride on a dragoncycle. He was sure she'd love that. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask: is no one else concerned with the fact that Janna is obviously evil or possessed or something?"

"Says the soul-bonded love-thrall of the undead princess, while riding a thestral," a voice behind and above him pointed out sarcastically. Marco almost fell of his flying horse as the troublemaker's winged form swooped down right besides him, effortlessly catching up to the two of them. He veered sharply away from her on instinct. "Relax, I am no more evil than I was a month ago."

To Marco, who had grown up knowing Janna, that was not entirely reassuring.

"Ok, Janna, I'll bite," Jackie said, riding a small current and passing Marco from below to find herself flying side by side with Janna. "What's up with the wings and flowing shadows and stuff? Since when do you have magical powers?"

"Well, originally?" the troublemaker girl pretended to think. "Since I did the nasty with Tom in the middle of a cemetery."

Jackie raised an eyebrow, Marco just frowned.

"What? Like you two are ones to judge," she shrugged. The movement sent her a few meters up as her wings responded to her muscles. "Damn! Still not used to these things... So, anyways, Tom was teaching me magic, and apparently it turns out I can draw power from him. Let me tell you, there is a lot more power inside your average demon than in all the corpses in Echo Creek's graveyard, and Tom is not really your average demon."

"Fine, I get it," Marco spoke, drawing on his own experience with magic to fill in the details Janna was glossing over, probably on purpose. "That's how you could create fireballs and shoot lightning and all that stuff we saw you do that night at Tom's place. But it doesn't explain now. Tom seemed shocked when he saw you do it and, well, aren't you two..." he trailed off.

"Broken up?" Janna said flatly. She glanced up to where Star and Tom were flying together, laughing about something. The princess punched the demon in the arm and he just seemed to laugh louder. "I couldn't care less if he fell into one of those cracks of fire right now. We are done, and I don't think I can draw power from him without being... close. Fortunately, I found a better source."

"Right," Marco said simply. "I mean, I am sorry to hear that... you and Tom," he added as an afterthought. Then, concerned, "But, well, what about that other source? What is it?"

"Marco, you _really_ shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answer to." Janna looked at her hand. There was something there, a tattoo of a snake wrapped four times around her left index finger, covering most of the digit in black ink.

"See, Janna," Marco pointed out, "that's not exactly the kind of thing you say when you want people to not worry about what the literal hell is going on with you..."

"Right, right," she retorted. "So, basically, dabbling in the dark arts is only fine when it's your cheating girlfriend doing it? Maybe you should spend less time worrying about me, and more time worrying about her. I don't care anymore what she and Tom are up to over there, but I would have thought you might. Then again, I don't understand you guys, for all I know it is Tom's turn to bang the bug tonight!"

Marco was about to raise to the bait, when Jackie cut him off, "Janna, we do worry about Star. And perhaps, in worrying about Star, we missed some of the stuff that was going on with you. I am really sorry if that was the case. Look, we are your friends, we have known you for years. If you say you are fine, then you are fine, but I'd still would like to know what you are dealing with, exactly..."

"Fine, you want to know, Jackie? You really really want to know?" Janna grumbled back, annoyed. Then she pointed upwards, towards the open wound in the sky, towards the deep maw that was the true form of the Endless Shadow. "Sam made me an offer I couldn't refuse. His power, some of it, enough to do pretty much anything I can dream of, maybe everything Star can... I no longer have to depend on Tom, or anyone else."

Jackie paused for a second, then, very gently, she said, "I imagine there is a catch..."

"Sure there is," Janna admitted. She showed them her open palm, the viper tattoo around her finger. "Whenever I cast magic, this mark thing grows in size and inches towards the center of my body. The more powerful the spell, the more it grows. Eventually it will wrap around my torso and then reach towards my heart. It will bite it, and I will die. When I die, my soul comes right back here, and, well... you get the idea. So, sure, the ending is bad, but is not like I expected something different, you know? Not since I learned for a fact that demons and hell are real. It will be years, even decades, before I exhaust this kind of power, and until I do... the world is my oyster!"

"Sure," Marco muttered, "'Don't worry guys, I only sold my soul to the devil!'"

Janna glared at him. "At least when I pay with souls I sell my own, Marco. I don't gift my girlfriend's to the 'Dark Queen Ascending'. Bet you that turns out alright!" she said sarcastically.

"Wait a minute, Janna, how the hell do you know about that!?" Marco shouted. She had said something about him being 'soul-bonded' to Star before. It only now occurred to Marco that she shouldn't have heard anything about that.

"Wouldn't you like to know...?" Janna grinned, and with a deliberate shrug, she pushed herself far up into the air, where she begun rapidly gliding away from them. 

Jackie sighed. "Marco, dude, I love you, but that was really dumb."

"I... Sorry, Jackie, I thought we agreed that the Blood Moon stuff was the only option I had last night and..." he tried to apologize.

"Not that," Jackie stopped him. "I mean, Janna."

Oh. Right.

"So, you are also worried about what she just said?" Marco asked.

"Of course I am worried! She made another deal with Sam," the girl pointed out. "Is not like Janna is an idiot. She must know there is no way that one ends any better than the one before. If anything, we got lucky back there. So there must be a reason why she was willing to take it, even knowing that."

Marco almost missed the fact that Jackie's hand had come to meaningfully rest in the nacre scabbard to her side right as she said that.

"Let me talk to her alone, ok?" she asked Marco. "I think I might have an easier time getting to her, or at least making sure she knows we are here when she wants to talk about it."

He nodded, and Jackie tugged at the horse's reins, taking off after their mutual childhood friend.

\----

"See that, Star? That's one of the exits out of Sam's domain, " Tom explained, pointing at the narrow passage between two huge intersecting black spikes sprouting from two separate ground-bridges below. "It's not yet the one we want, so don't fly in between. But the portal we are looking for is very likely going to be similar."

In a standard euclidean space, there would not have been anything special behind the pillars. Certainly, if they went around the arch, they would see nothing but more burning fissures and narrow bridges as far as the eye could see. Sam's domain was, after all, spherical, albeit not quite in the way Earth was. It was oriented inside-out, with what they perceived as the ground being the inside surface rather than the outside surface of the globe. Either way, it was large enough that it looked flat. It would have taken great powers of observation for most mortals to even notice that the horizon curved slightly upwards before fading into the distance, rather than slightly downwards. Even the demon prince could only tell this because of what he already knew of the infernal topography of the place.

"Ugh, that looks really gross, Tom," Star pointed out, regarding the view on the other side of the archway.

"I know! It smells even worse! Isn't that great?" he joked. 

Inwardly, Tom had to admit he was actually happy they weren't going that way. The ground on the other side of the portal was made of rotting flesh and bone, and inhabited by maggots the size of blue whales. Even flying over it would be unpleasant, if only due to the overwhelming odor of diseased putrefaction. Still, baiting Star with this kind of stuff was always fun.

"Whatever, you do you, Tom," she shrugged, disgusted. They flew past the dimensional gate, without looking back. 

In a way, this was the least awkward that their friendship had felt in a long time. It was definitely less nerve wracking than the year he spent pining after her, looking for ways to get back together. But also, Star seemed in a better mood than any he had seen her in since her mom's death. That was great news! The girl was insanely strong, after all, mentally as well as physically, and seemed to be well on her way to recovering. The demon prince supposed her relationship with Marco and Jackie helped with that. Well, if that's what it took, then it was fine by him, really.

"Hey, how are you guys doing?" asked a voice behind them, as another thestral caught up to the ones he and the princess were riding. Ah, speaking of the humans...

"Hey, Marco!" Tom answered cheerfully.

"Marco!" Star greeted her boyfriend brightly, flying closer towards him. "Everything alright back there?"

"Um. Yeah. I mean, well, it is under control," the boy replied. "You know Janna. Nothing major, though. How about you? How are you holding, Star?"

"Pfff, I am fine, Marco," Star said, waving the non-wand hand around, dismissively. "This place is super creepy, but from way up here, well, this is almost fun! Yeah, totally fun... totally..."

Marco didn't say a word.

"Ok, fine! I am nervous, Marco. I am scared," Star admitted. "I keep waiting for Sam to pop out from nowhere and say that letting us go last night was just another joke. Even once we get out of his domain, well, the thing that killed my mom is out there. We barely survived the last two times we faced it. Don't get me wrong, I do want to find it. I want to avenge my mom and save Mewni and Earth, I really do. But I am also scared..."

"Yeah," Marco agreed. "Look, Star, is good to be scared. I am scared too. It means we are alert, that we are ready. The last two times, well, it caught us by surprise. It ambushed us. Now we are expecting it. You have your awesome new wand, Jackie has the glass blade, I have... well, it's a long story. The point is, it will be different this time. I know we can beat this thing!"

Star nodded and smiled again. "Marco?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for still being here."

"I'll always be here, Star. You are my best friend."

"Awww, you two," Tom interjected. He grinned as both Star and Marco blushed ever so slightly, realizing he was still there with them.

Honestly, he felt a bit weird around those two, despite it all. He hoped the other boy wasn't mad about him and Star flying ahead. He really hadn't meant anything by that. It was, just, well, he had wanted to make sure things were all cool between them, and fortunately it seemed they were. Better than he had expected, actually. 

"Look, I can leave you two alone if you want some privacy," he offered.

"Actually, Tom, I sort of want to talk to you," Marco replied. "One on one, if you two don't mind."

Ouch. What had he done now? Tom thought back to the last few hours, trying to look for something else he had messed up. Or maybe they hadn't finished talking about the thing two nights ago. Well, yeah, he could understand if Marco was still pissed about that, actually. Or worried. That too.

"Sure, Marco," Tom replied, equably. "Star?"

"Yeah, yeah, you two go ahead and have your guy talk, or whatever," she offered. "Just, tell me when we need to take a portal or change course or anything like that, ok?"

Right. Tom nodded. After all, he was their best navigator, as far as traversing hell was concerned. He had memorized the route before the night of the green lizard ghost, and still remembered the rest of the way from here. "We'll fly ahead, Star, you girls just need to follow behind us men for a bit."

He punctuated that statement with a cocky grin. Star rolled her eyes at that, but Tom noticed she was still smiling.

The demon prince and Marco flew a bit higher, and a bit faster, taking point in the group's formation. Once they were alone, Tom's face fell back into a guilty expression.

"Look, man, if this is about the other night: again, I am sorry. I'll let you land one free punch on me once we are back on the ground, if that makes you feel better," he offered.

"What?" Marco asked surprised. "No, Tom, that's... well, whatever, that happened, and we all talked it, and we reached an agreement. Look, it is not like I own Star or anything. Actually, that's kind of the problem... I want to ask you... what do you know about the Blood Moon?"

"The Blood Moon?" Tom asked. Crap! He was so busy worrying about the awful shit he had done to them recently, that he hadn't thought back to the awful shit he had put them through before. "Look, Marco, I am sorry, I was a different person back then and..."

"Look, man, I crashed your home and ruined your party that night; out of jealousy. Basically, neither of us covered ourselves in glory back then," the boy shrugged. "That's also not why I am asking. I think something happened, you know, to Star and I, that night, when we danced at the ball..."

All of Tom's three eyes went wide, and he almost fell of the thestral. "You two are soul bonded by the Blood Moon!?"

No wonder his attempts to win Star back had gone as badly as they did. He was doomed from the start! Or they were doomed. Or, well, that was cheating! That dance had been for him! It could have been him, couldn't it? But it was Marco instead. To think Tom had been apologizing to him about that night! The human should apologize to both Star, and to him!

Wait, no, no, that wasn't him anymore. Tom forced his eyes shut and counted to ten. Marco wasn't at fault. Star wasn't at fault. The Blood Moon chose the souls it joined together, it couldn't be tricked. Tom knew that. He had just hoped, back then, that if he and Star were close when the choosing happened, then maybe it would turn out they were meant to be. Instead, it chose her and Marco. As for him and the princess, it was clear, in retrospect, why that hadn't worked out, Blood Moon or no Blood Moon. The demon had simply learned some lessons way too late. If Marco hadn't been there, and him and Star had danced together that night instead, then likely nothing would have happened, and the Blood Moon would have just chosen a different couple.

"Hey, man, everything ok?" Marco asked worried.

"Ah, yes, of course," he forced a smile. "Look, it's just... such a surprise... Congratulations! No, really! It is really cool. If the Blood Moon picks you two, it really means you have something really special, something that happens only to two lucky people in all the worlds, once every six hundred and sixty-seven years..." he concluded with a genuine grin. "Well, I do keep saying you are such an infuriatingly lucky bastard!" he laughed.

Honestly, it was kind of cool to have his two best friends be this lucky, when you looked at it that way.

"Well, actually, Tom," Marco spoke, cautiously, "Jackie might have also been joined to us by the Blood Moon... last night."

Wait, what!?

Once again, only a last minute reaction on the part of the flying horse itself, prevented the demon prince from falling down from its back.

For the following half an hour, Tom listened to the weirdest tale he had ever heard, even after all that had happened to them in the past week. He was sure that Marco was leaving out a lot of the details of what occurred before and after the green ghost's attack, either for his sake or for that of Star's privacy. Tom was, honestly, thankful for that. He didn't dare interrupt until the human was done, only nodding and frowning in response as appropriate.

"So that's the situation," Marco concluded, "Bond or not, I am happy to always be there for Star and for Jackie. But I had a dream last night, and it reminded me just how dangerous it is to get involved with supernatural forces. Particularly when you don't understand how they work or what are the terms, so to speak," the boy winced. There was, clearly, more to that than what he was saying. "So, if you know anything I don't, then it might be important for me to hear it."

"Look, Marco, the Blood Moon Ball is a very old tradition," Tom explained. "I've only been to a few, and never before have I met a chosen couple. Is not like I know all of the details. The legend is that it happens every six hundred and sixty-seven years, and the Blood Moon chooses two people, usually two lovers, to have their souls, their destinies, linked for all eternity. There are some tales about that bond being used to find each others across dimensions, or to break evil curses, but those are more like fables than anything else, you never know what's literal and what isn't..."

Apparently, the part about breaking curses was at least partly true, based on what Marco had just told him. He tried to think of any other legends that might come in handy, if they were true.

"The Blood Moon appears to the lovers when one of them is in danger, and fate conspires to keep them together, that's all I know. In any case, I have never heard of it choosing three people," he added. "Sorry, Marco. That's all I got, and... wait!"

Tom turned around and shouted as loudly as he could. "Star, that's it! That's the exit we want!"

He pointed at a small cloud of fog at the end of one of the bridges below them. The strip of ground curved sharply upwards and then ended as it met the fog. Through the mist, a huge stone archway could be dimly seen, large enough to accommodate two winged horses, side by side, wing tip to wing tip. Star signaled the other two with a sort of magical flare, and all five of them made a dive for it.

"Everyone alert," shouted the princess, her voice amplified by magic. "Remember, we are leaving Sam's domain!"

They all knew what that meant.

\----

Jackie's attempts to reach Janna were a resounding failure. The winged girl just ran circles around her and her horse whenever she so much as tried to get close to her. Janna didn't want to talk, and no power on Earth or Hell could force her to listen. Eventually, Jackie relented, flying behind the rest of the formation, as Tom and Marco took point.

Star joined the two boys soon after they made it past the first portal. The human girl gave all three of them some space for a change. She used the time to reflect on last night, and to check out their, decidedly creepy, surroundings.

They crossed the foggy gate out of Sam's domain into a world of empty darkness and frozen polyhedral shapes, like ice-bergs floating in the nothingness. They flew up, there, almost vertically, for hours, until they found a frozen perfect pyramid. They went into it through its base, as if it were the surface of a lake, feeling a slight and transitory wet sensation as they crossed through what had seemed like solid glass.

They came out through a black oil pool into a sunless land, where ghostly giants of shadow shambled across a marsh-like hellscape. That world's own exit was through the gargantuan mouth of a titanic corpse, the only one seemly made of flesh rather than darkness. It was humanoid. It's stomach had been cut open, and its entrails nailed to the heavenly vault, forcing it to stand up, or at least keeping it from falling backwards entirely. Jackie noticed that its exposed heart was still beating, slowly.

"Is this the most metal thing you guys have seen or what!?" shouted the demon prince cheerfully for all to hear, right before his horse made a dive for the dead giant's agonized face.

It was a good thing that Tom seemed to know where they were going. None of those bizarre paths would have ever occurred to Jackie.

The last hell they saw was pleasant by comparison: a simple barren world of cold volcanic rock as far as the eye could see. The sky had no stars, and no aurora of souls like Sam's did, but a low and diffuse white light seemed to come down from it. Up in the air, there were these huge black doors. Some just seemed to directly go to other worlds, once again having nothing behind them unless you went right through the opening. A few seemed to have a long silver staircase going upwards, but, again, only if you went directly through the gate.

Tom announced that this was the last dimension before reaching Hekapoo's domain. 

Jackie's educated guess was that no-staircase meant a lateral move to another hellish dimension, and going upwards meant going back to the world of the living. A theory that seemed to hold as Marco performed his finding ritual again, at Tom's request, and it guided them all towards one of the stair-connected doorways.

It was barely wide enough for their winged horses to go through.

"Everyone, dismount after you are on the stairs, I'll stop the spell then," Star shouted as she made it through. Her horse vanishing as soon as it landed on the steps behind the door. The princess simply jumped down on the stairway as this happened.

"Man, Star." Marco was the second to land. "Are you sure we can't fly _up_ the stairs too? They look really long."

"Oh, they are _excruciatingly_ long," Tom offered helpfully, landing after him. "It's one hundred and eight flights of stairs total, and one hundred and eight steps in each, so... eleven thousand steps or so? One guess as to how many of these staircases are out there too, by the way," he chuckled. "But, like I was saying, if we fly too far away from the steps, they will vanish, and we will have to start over again. You really need to walk them all. There is no other way."

"This really is hell," Marco complained, overly dramatically. Star and Tom laughed, as did Jackie once she caught up to them.

"Come on dude, a little exercise never killed anyone," she pointed out. "Besides, can you imagine a place like this but with a ramp going down? That would be pretty rad for skateboarding!" 

Marco seemed to doubt that assertion, which only made Jackie chuckle some more.

"Hey, guys, question, do we have any food?" Tom pointed out. "I am starving."

"UNREASONABLY VARIED FLAVORS MUFFIN BLAST!" cried Star, pointing her wand at the platform in front of them.

Out of the golden star crystal, for it was a crystal again and not a true star, came a pressurized stream of muffins, as if from a bursting muffin-filled fire hydrant. The pastries themselves were of all shapes and colors, with bits and pieces of different kinds of foodstuffs inside them. They bounced off of the ground at some speed, most of them falling over the side of the stairs, down into the dark ocean below.

Star herself caught a few in her arms as they ricocheted, offering them to the other teens. Tom grabbed a red one from the ground and bit into it unconcerned.

"Uh, isn't that kind of dirty?" Marco protested.

"Marco, there hasn't been a living soul walking this stairs for thousands of years," retorted Tom. "This is basically a sterile surface. Mmmm... coagulated blood, eyeballs, and 'Bird's Eye' chili peppers? Nice work, Star!"

Clearly the 'unreasonably varied flavors' part of the spell in action. The human boy made a nauseated face at that, and Jackie couldn't say she blamed him.

"Here, Marco, have these two," Star offered. "And Jackie, maybe... these two?"

Hers were, respectively, a sourdough and avocado muffin with egg, and some sort of mango and ginseng root cupcake. Actually, they weren't half bad. The first was like avocado toast wrapped on itself with a poached egg in the center, savory, semi-healthy, and pretty filling, some sort of brunch singularity.

"Is this a 'mole con pollo' muffin, Star?" Marco asked in surprise, after finally deciding to bite into his. "Mmm... this is... good... but soooo weird, but... mmmhf... so good! Man, thanks Star!"

Star kept a bunch of bright colored and rather sugary looking ones for herself. Behind the rest of the group, Janna picked up a plain brown one and a bright pink cupcake for herself, without saying a word.

They ate as they walked up, going around in a square spiral. It was a repeating pattern of 108 steps up, flat platform, ninety degree left turn, then the next flight of stairs. They were wide, more than wide enough for all five of them to travel side by side. Still, they naturally separated slightly over time.

Somehow, Marco and Tom paired up, leaving her and Star marching together ahead of them. Janna was all the way to the back, and after a while all of them gave up in trying to talk to her.

"So, did we just call upon the forbidden arts to get me a mango cupcake, Star?" Jackie joked.

"Haha. Nah, Jackie. That's not how dark magic works," the princess corrected her. "It would probably be something like, 'from far stars and burning lakes, I'd give my soul for some cupcakes'," she recited mockingly. 

Then she looked startled for a second, as if realizing what she had just said.

They both glanced at the mewman's wand, and held their breath. 

Fortunately, nothing happened. They both laughed nervously.

"Star, please, no more rhymes, ok?" Jackie pleaded with a smirk.

"Well, not for cupcakes, that's for sure!" retorted Star.

There was laugher, and then a brief pause.

"Hey, Star, I think there is something I need to tell you," Jackie begun.

Star's posture shifted a bit. She seemed worried, for some reason, which only made the human more nervous about this, "Ah, sure, Jackie, what is it?"

"I was jealous. Of you and Marco," Jackie spit it out.

"What!?" The princess almost missed a step. "But, but, but I thought you didn't get jealous?"

"So did I, dude," Jackie shrugged. "Turns out I didn't know myself as well as I thought."

"I... I can still back off, you know? Even now, if you two want to be alone... I think..." Star stammered.

"No! No, nothing like that," Jackie clarified, horrified. "Star, I am still happy you two are together, I really am. I am just saying that I can feel, well, left out, worried on whether I am as important as you two are to each other..."

"Jackie!" Star interrupted. "Marco had a gigantic crush on you before he even knew me, and he still does. If anything I have more of a reason to feel jealous."

Jackie smiled. "You know that I can argue against that, right? You know you two are closer than almost anyone else, have been almost since the day you arrived at Echo Creek, and that's without even bringing up the soul bond stuff. But that's not my point. It's not a contest. I just wanted to confess. To tell you that I was worried, and afraid, and messed up, and that's why I wanted to see you two do it. It was wonderful, it really was, and I am not worried anymore. But I feel like I sprung that up on you two under false pretenses. So, I am sorry about that."

Star frowned. "There is nothing you need to apologize for, Jackie. There is a total of one person that should apologize about that night, and is obviously the one who almost got us all killed... which is, well, me." 

Jackie made a dismissing gesture. 

"But, anyways," Star continued, "are you sure you don't want Marco just for yourself?"

They were getting closer and closer to the top of the stairs.

"Actually, Star, not at all," Jackie said, blushing. "After last night, I think I really want to be... around the both of you."

"Oh," Star said simply. Then, wide-eyed, she exclaimed, "Ooooh! Ah... around how?"

"Well, I don't know," Jackie tried to explain. "Look, is just, I enjoyed last night, not counting you know what, and I really liked you being there. Is not like I feel the same things about Marco and about you, and I don't expect you to feel the same back either, is just, I dunno, dude..."

Star pulled Jackie into a quick but strong hug and gave her a peck on the cheek. Then she moved away as fast as she had done that. "Look, Jackie, I am not sure I am on the same page. Looks like we don't even know what the page is. But we have time for figuring this out, right? For now, I am just glad that I have both you and Marco, as friends and as... whatever else. Is that fair?"

Jackie smiled. "That sounds great, Star."

They walked in silence for one full flight of stairs.

"Star," Jackie turned around and said, with an innocent smile, "I love you."

Star almost tripped. "Like... love-love?"

Jackie shrugged, "No idea, dude." It was the truth. "But some kind of love, anyways."

"I..." Star stammered.

"Nah, don't force it," the human girl stopped the princess.

"I think you are the most crazy-awesome person in the multiverse, then!" Star declared without missing a beat, and then it was Jackie's turn to almost trip on a step.

They reached the corner, turned left, and then, Jackie froze. 

She pulled her sword out of its scabbard. 

Star frowned and lifted up the wand.

"How very touching," spoke the smirking lizard as he walked down, hands behind his ghostly back. 

He was on the platform before the final one, on the opposite corner of where the two girls stood. That was a distance of two flights of stairs, 216 steps up, and he was closing that gap fast, even without needing to run. The being of green flame had been waiting for them. 

"And yet, despite all that, you rejected my generous offer. I suppose I am running out of options." the creature observed.

"You could just go to hell!" Jackie shouted.

Toffee's green fire phantasm just raised one eyebrow. Jackie felt dumb. That had been a stupid comeback, considering where they still were.

Emerald flames begun sprouting out of the staircase in front of the two of them as the ghost turned around the next platform. It raised a claw, and a small meteor of green flame flew towards her and Star.

With her sword unsheathed, working on instinct, Jackie took a step forward, lowered her stance and slashed fiercely at the fireball. The glass blade cut the spell in half as if it were nothing more than a papier-mâché globe, the blazes harmlessly dissipating into thin air.

A blink, and Star's mom, made of translucent glaucous in-substance, was charging down the stairs. As the creature took Moon's form, a bright energy sword appeared in her right hand. Jackie braced herself for combat.

She parried Moon's strike, deflecting it away from her body. Quickly, she tried to riposte, only for the translucent form of the Queen to jump back, avoiding the counter-attack. Before Jackie could get her guard up again, Star's mom was back in the offensive, her phantasmal blade falling towards her in a vicious slashing assault. 

The green ghost's blade hit instead a glittering barrier. Between it and Jackie, a pink shielding half-bubble had appeared. Star stepped in front of the human girl then, a determined look in her eyes, her wand still raised after the defensive spell she had just cast. The bubble pushed the ghost's form backwards. Not-Moon fell to the ground, but quickly rolled herself back up and away from the princess' shield.

Before either their foe or Star could do anything else, a pair of bright red fireballs came flying out from behind the two girls, followed by a guttural war cry as Tom caught up to them. The apparition jumped back once more to avoid the attack, and turned into Hekapoo.

"Oh no, not this time," came another voice behind them. Marco, also catching up.

Jackie couldn't turn around to see what he was doing, since she was trying not to lift her eyes from the being. But she heard him say something in a language she couldn't recognize.

Tom fired three more fireballs at the creature, around the sides of Star's barrier. The Hekapoo look-alike simply cut them with the detached blades of a ghostly pair of dimensional scissors. "Nice try, kid, but, seriously, this does not concern you, and you no longer have the home field advantage."

"We don't need it anymore, H-poo," spoke Marco in a low manly voice. "Haven't you realized that already? Things are different this time around, and we are afraid of no ghosts."

He stepped in front of everyone else and pushed both hands forward as if he were trying to open an enormous double door in mid air. Marco's entire body glowed with a faint white light. An invisible force flung the fake Hekapoo's arms to the sides in response to the boy's gesture. 

The ghost froze there, as if its wrists were nailed to an invisible cross. It struggled violently, but it seemed it couldn't get out of whatever was holding it. Marco frowned, sweat dripping down his forehead. 

"Star, drop the barrier and finish it!" Marco shouted.

The pink glittering shield went down.

"I call the darkness unto me, from deepest depths of earth and sea..."

"Star, wait!" shouted Glossaryck, still immobilized. It was a trick, of course, another viridescent illusion worn as a mask by their duplicitous enemy.

"...from ancient evils unawoken, to break the one who can't be broken..."

"Star, sweetie?" the phantasmal emerald form of Moon pleaded to her daughter.

"...To blackest night I pledge my soul, and crush my heart to burning coal..."

"I am only doing what you asked for, Star, what your heart wished for," Toffee's ghost explained, speaking hurriedly over the mewman's muttering of the spell. Clearly, the creature was running out of options. "Ending this form won't change that."

"...to summon forth the deathly power..."

The being began shifting one more time, and this time, it wasn't any of the people Jackie had seen the monster imitate before. It was some sort of midget bald bird, barely taller than Glossaryck had been. It had a misshapen curved beak, a head way too big for his body, and a long braided beard. All of it rendered in burning green spectral fire. She recognized it as the same person that had once stolen Star's book of spells, that night of her own first date with Marco. Just, you know, without the clown costume.

"Alright, fine, kill me again, won't you?" the chicken-like dwarf squawked. "Whatever, go ahead, blow me to bits! No big deal. What else should I have expected? Gratitude? Nah. Of course not! I suppose you also don't want to know how you called me to this reality. We can all try this again once you get to the rest of me. Only, well... I hope you dinguses don't expect to find us in a talking mood then. Go on, princess, make it quick!"

Star frowned. The wand still pointed directly at the center of the pitiful creature.

"You want to talk, 'Ludo'? ...Fine. Talk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there it is, I give up, I might have succumbed to your pleading in the comments and decided to give you your deepest heart desire: Starkie begins! ;)
> 
> Also, what a great turn around for our protagonists! Star is doing alright, our main three are happy and in love, Tom is feeling fine, hanging out with his best friends! Janna is... well, she got the power she wanted! They are literally steps away from exiting hell. They survived Sam and subdued our villain once again! What do you say? Time to call it for a Part III happy ending next chapter?
> 
>  **Coming up next** : _Chapter 30 Unveil to Me What is Forbidden_
> 
> ... Oh.


	30. Unveil to Me What is Forbidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which dark truths are learned, alternative worlds discussed, and a truly grave line is crossed.

The real burning star in the middle of the magic wand was currently a rotating sphere of dark purple flames. It held a spell of hate and death at the ready, one phrase away from its completion. 'To see my hated foe devoured' was all Star would have to say, and it would be done: no more ghost Ludo, or ghost Toffee, or ghost not-her-mom. No matter what form it took, the mewman was prepared to end this thing's existence the moment it so much as twitched unexpectedly. She kept the wand pointed straight at the emerald phantasm's heart.

Jackie had taken position behind the green creature of fire and dread, currently made to resemble the pitiable bird monster. The human girl had Sam's glass sword not only drawn, but pointed straight at the back of its translucent skull. She had pulled it backwards far enough that she could put some very real momentum behind it, at a moment's notice. One wrong move, and she would plunge the blade into the apparition. Sure, normally that would be an empty threat towards an immaterial enemy, but they all had just seen the glass blade cut a fireball in two.

Star had seen it perhaps more clearly than Jackie herself had. She noticed that the rapier had torn not only the effect, but the fundamental pattern of their enemy's magic. The princess had seen Sam do something similar once during their fight, when he slapped her spell away with the back of his hand and it shattered like glass rather than merely being deflected. It was quite clear to her now that a physical target was not a requirement as far as the devil's weapon was concerned. Good.

To Star's right, Marco held both arms extended in front of him, hands balled into tense fists. He looked alert but calm. Apparently holding on to the creature using the ritual was easier when it wasn't trying to fight back. Ludo's tiny ugly arms remained extended to both sides of his form, as the monster's body floated in mid air, immobilized by some magic even Star didn't fully understand. As a backup, black chains held his feet, arms, and neck. Tom had summoned those. The demon prince was himself now positioned at their enemy's five o' clock, alert and ready. They had it well and truly surrounded.

"Seriously? Is all of this _really_ necessary? That's _two_ sets of restrains, and _two_ means of execution, for corn sake! Don't you idiots think this is a _little_ too much?" complained Ludo.

"No," the mewman replied coldly. "No, I don't."

If anything, it might not be enough. But she wanted to know, she needed to know, what this was really all about. Besides, Marco had told her about his dream, the one from over a week ago, about Hekapoo's warning: An aspect for an aspect, was it?

So, whatever this creature was, it was not the being that killed her mom. It was a part of it, perhaps, like a tree is part of a forest, like a drop of water was part of the storm. But it wasn't the full thing. The storm was still out there. They needed to know about the storm.

"Well, you see, princess," the being of green flames explained, sardonically, "this, right here, this is your problem. You want this to be a fight, you are looking for a fight, and so, that's what you find. Such a violent girl! You have it all wrong, you know? I was never your enemy. _We_ were never your enemy. We want what you want... quite literally."

Star's grip on the wand tightened, "Right. So you are going to tell me you didn't kill my mom!?"

"Ah...well, you see... mhmmm... that... That was somewhat of a... miscalculation on our part, an honest mistake," Ludo stammered. "Really wish we could lie, by the way. I'd come _real_ handy right about now. But, well, we can't, you know? So, no, I guess I can't really tell you that."

Star's cheekmarks gradually turned black with anger and hatred. The deadly spell no longer seemed to burn her veins since her resurrection, but dark storm clouds had begun forming all around them: a veritable hurricane of shadows around the huge floating staircase, with them all inside the fragile calm of its proverbial eye.

"Well, that does it, I am leaving before this obviously dumb idea turns into a real shit show!" declared Janna suddenly. 

She began walking towards their captive, or, more likely, past him, headed towards the big obsidian archway at the end of the stairs, two floors up. Presumably, that was their door out of hell, and into Hekapoo's domain. Unlike the other portals, there was no visible otherworldly scene past this one, just a swirling whirlpool of orange and golden fire. It looked very much like one of Hekapoo's habitual portals, just larger, and, well, more permanent.

"Janna, you do remember this asshole tried to kill you as well, right?" Star asked, irritated. 

She was still not sure what the hell was the witch's problem. Frankly, if she did good on her threat to strike out on her own after this, then good riddance! Star wasn't even sure why she was trying to convince her to stay for the interrogation. If the human didn't care about getting revenge on this monster, then that was her problem, not Star's.

Janna let out an annoyed grunt, the flesh membrane of her wings shuffling behind her as she did that. "Yeah, and that was to get to you! If I leave now, then I won't have to worry about him or about you. Look, if you are going to kill it, then I am all for it. But kill it now, before he goads you into yet another stupid mistake..."

"Heh. It's funny, you know?" the monster interjected. "I think Janna and I would have understood each other quite well. I mean, her and Ludo, not, you know, the actual _us_. Both struggling harder than anyone else, just to try and fail to get to the place others simply started from. Both unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time... the punchline of a cosmic joke they don't even get to understand... ha. ha. HA!"

Janna glanced disinterestedly at her tattooed finger. "Whatever. Just leave me out of this!" she huffed, but sat back down on the stair steps.

"You were _always_ out of this," replied the ghost with a vicious grin. The witch tried to appear nonchalant, but even the mewman noticed the tense way in which her hand had balled up into a shaking fist without thinking.

"Ok, enough!" Star interrupted. She so didn't care about Janna and her issues right now. "So, you say you can't lie? Ok, then, tell me, do you have a name!? We know you are not Ludo, or Toffee, or... anyone else we know. And don't give me any of that 'Love, All-Conquering', 'Will, Unbending', bullshit!"

"Heh heh. It is not bullshit, princess," retorted the emerald apparition. "We are hope, and will, and love. We are the wellspring of goddamn living potential. We are the spark inside this poor pathetic creature striving to amass unimaginable power for the sake of all the love he never received. We are the demon prince willing to deal with the stuff of his own nightmares to help out his unavailable crush. We are the fucking proverbial 'why not?' that you children so cherish." 

Wait! How did it even know anything about that last part?

The thing wearing Ludo's face continued, "and, specifically, we are your potential, Star Butterfly. We are your hope, your will, your love. That and so much more. If you must have a name for us, you might as well call us... _Wish_... for we are the wish of your deepest heart desire! That, princess, is who, and what, we are."

"That is a load of crap!" Star yelled furiously, a violet glow sparking behind her eyes. "I didn't wish for my mom to be dead! I didn't wish for Hekapoo, or Glossaryck, or even Ludo, to die!"

"Of course you didn't," Wish retorted calmly. "Your mom and Ludo just got in the way of what you really wanted, and paid the price. Wrong time, wrong place. To bad, so sad. You see, there was once a world where Ludo survived, where Toffee murdered your mum, and Hekapoo and Glossaryck too, and where you, in turn, killed him. But, more importantly, in that world, you confessed your feelings for Marco... and he rejected you! Broke your precious little heart, let me tell you."

The bird monster laughed raucously to her face.

"Wait a moment," Marco protested, keeping his arms raised, restraining their foe. "What the hell are you talking about? I could never do that! I love Star, she is my best friend, and an amazing girlfriend, and, ah, our souls are bonded, and..."

"... and without me, you would have ignored her and humiliated her, let her flee back to Mewni alone to face the choice of war or exile," 'Ludo' explained. "But that world is no more. It will never be. That's because the princess and I have a deal, because I answered her prayers just like the Blood Moon answered yours. That night, she wished for nothing else than for you to be together, she wished it with all her heart and soul... and we delivered."

"No, no, no, no..." Star muttered horrified. Realizing which day the being meant. "Not like that, not at the cost of my mom's life, not at the cost of anyone's life..."

"As you saw them together, embracing in the same adoring desire that your own heart held for the boy, you wished for Marco to love you, and you wanted him to have Jackie as well. In that moment, it was all that mattered," Wish concluded. Then, his voice changed, it was now many voices, echoing atop each other, all female, and all very much like Star's own, "You called me, Star Butterfly. To rewrite reality. To change destiny... To tear a hole into the sky!"

Tears began streaming down the princess' cheeks, despite her best efforts not to cry. There was no way any of that was true. "You are lying!"

"I already told you," Ludo's voice retorted. He smirked as he said it, "we _can't_ lie."

No, no, it really couldn't be true! The All-Seeing Eye spell was just a scrying spell. Sure, spying was wrong, spying led to crying. But there was no way that dumb mistake had caused her mom's death. There was no way that it had summoned this... this thing. It was just a damn scrying spell!

Then the mewman remembered something: 'A scrying spell? Oh, dear. Is that what you think that is?' Eclipsa's words echoed inside Star's head. She knew. That night after her mom's funeral, Eclipsa already knew!

"So, we made it so you three ended up together," Wish continued. "And to protect that oh so precious happily ever after, we removed the Septarian general as a factor, and then anyone who was able to see that reality had been changed. But, of course, mommy dear had to get in the way and die anyways..."

Star felt, for the second time in twenty-four hours, as if she were suffocating. She had done this. Her spell created, or summoned, this creature. She had killed her mom! It didn't even matter that Moon was dead in that other world that the monster was talking about. It didn't matter at all. Because, in this world, the cause of her mom's death... was Star herself...

"And, of course, after that, we just plain couldn't get you to be happy with what you got out of the bargain!" Ludo's form complained. "We tried everything! We tried to convince you to let go, to move on, to understand that your mom was now in a better place. But you wouldn't have that. We threatened you, and your friends, to no avail. We even offered you all everlasting bliss, but your boyfriend pushed us away. Star, we mean you no harm, we just want you to be happy with the one, or the ones, you love, and leave _us_ be in turn, to pursue our own wish."

She couldn't take this anymore. Star was trembling. She had caused this? She had wanted this? Or at least it thought she wanted this? This was some sort of cruel joke. It couldn't be true. Could it? Maybe, deep down, she really was an evil princess. She had killed her own mom, because, for a second, she had not cared what happened to anyone and anything else, as long as she had Marco, and he had Jackie. Star thought of Princess White. The vampire had bragged about murdering her own mother. Was Star just like her? A monster too?

The mewman's legs failed her. In the last moment, she felt a pair of hands steadying her by the shoulders. Marco had rushed towards her the moment she began falling down, and was now the only thing keeping her standing.

"Star, are you ok?" the boy asked, pale with worry. "Look, this is not your fault. You didn't want this. You didn't wish for this. That thing twisted your spell. It is obvious to all of us that you wouldn't have wanted to hurt your mom, for your own sake, or for mine. Besides, like I said, I loved you before that night... Being with you is the best thing I can possibly imagine, so I would have said yes, in this or any other world... So... so he must be lying! About that, and also about why it is here, about why it... you know. He simply must be! Star... This. Is. Not. Your. Fault."

There was a loud screeching sound behind them, that of metal twisting and shattering.

"Uhm, Marco, Star, I don't want to pressure you two now, but I kinda can't hold him on my own," complained Tom. Star looked up to see the black chains melting and crackling around the ghost form, a form that was now half-way between Ludo and Toffee. The lizard smiled cruelly.

"We can all talk about this later, Star. For the record, what this monster did is definitely not your fault," Jackie shouted. "But I think we learned all we needed to learn, so let's kill this asshole!"

She followed those words with a piercing lunge. The human's girl blade narrowly missed the lizard's neck, as it twisted himself free from the chains. Not-Toffee sprung around and hit Jackie in the face with its burning emerald tail, throwing her against the stairs, knocking the human girl unconscious.

That did it. It was the final drop.

"To see my HATED FOE **DEVOURED**!" shouted Star, releasing the deadly spell against the being of green flames. 

She meant it. She meant it like she had never meant anything before. To kill this thing was truly her heart's deepest desire right now. She wanted it to die, she wanted it to suffer, she wanted everything that it was, everything that it represented, everything that it had done, everything that it had said, to be gobbled up by her hate.

She didn't hit the heart, not directly. A huge lizard claw caught the blast of the spell in its palm. But it didn't matter. Hate like hers would not be denied, could not be denied, not this time. Tendrils of magical darkness began spreading up through the abomination's arm, its emerald brightness dimming as the death spell gnawed at its form. Toffee's eyes reflected a look of surprise and terror she had never seen on the lizard, before or since his death. Star smiled, a maniacal glee filling the hole in her soul that had been carved up by the knowledge of her accidental matricide.

The magical resonance that had accompanied her previous attempts to use her spells on the fiery phantasm flared up. It made the princess' entire body shake as if electrocuted. Yet she powered through, driven by rage and the euphoria of her anticipated victory.

"Argh! You think this will get rid of us? You think you have won? You know there is more to us than this form, Star! So much more," threatened the creature, using Toffee's voice, it's reptilian face a grimace of unearthly pain. His right arm lit up in brightness one final time, and then exploded into a shower of green embers, just as the black tendrils begun creeping around the center of his chest and spreading all the way to its face and the tips of the fingers in his left hand. "You can't beat us... Ugh!... You can't undo your bargain... Argh!... But you can decide when you are done fighting... and letting innocents get caught in the way!"

Toffee smiled a big toothy smirk, and pointed his remaining claw at Janna. The witch's eyes went wide. She sprung up of her sitting position, suddenly realizing that she was not sitting this battle out, after all.

Out of Toffee's hand, the black and violet blast of Star's spell emerged. The rest of the lizard's burning form faded into nothingness with a bone-chilling scream and a harrowing mad laugher. Yet, the deadly spell continued, strong, towards Janna.

\----

Janna's body slid forcefully through the sharp edge of the stair step, her wing partly torn by the impact. The silver rim had cut a nasty gash across its membranous skin, and bent the cartilage supports the wrong way around. It was a pain unlike any she had felt before. It was a pain that she, most decidedly, did not enjoy. It was the bad kind of pain.

She forced herself to remember that the appendage was not originally part of her, that this, therefore, could not be a fatal wound. After all, all the 'real' parts of her were intact, superficially beaten up at most. She had been lucky.

No, not lucky. Not exactly.

Blood splattered her. Lots of it. Glowing crimson blood. Literally glowing, like cooling embers. She looked up. Horror dawned in her mind.

"Aaaahh! Urghh," panted Tom. Clutching his arm. 

Or, rather, what little was left of it. 

He held onto the cauterized stump where an arm would have been. Two of his fingers, the only remains of his hand, lay atop Janna's lap. That, and all the blood, was the only evidence that the demon prince had ever had an arm.

He had jumped towards her in the last minute. He had pushed her away from the path of Star's spell. He was the reason she was still alive at all. But the hand he used to throw her out of the way had been caught in the blast instead. Now it wasn't there. Instead, there remained only an irregular bump stopping inches away from Tom's shoulder. 

The demon boy was crying and howling in pain. Janna had never seen Tom hurt like that. Knowing how strong, how resilient, how damn near indestructible Tom was, only added to the horror.

Everything around her was silent, and moving way too fast. She had to remind herself to breathe.

She saw Star rush towards Tom, crying as well. She was doing something to him. Grabbing him. Restraining him. Tom couldn't speak, he only opened his mouth to yell. Janna could barely hear his shouts over the deafening all-encompassing silence. Yet she knew they were lung tearing screams of agony. She could see that in all three of his red glowing and crying eyes. Not anger this time, just suffering, just pain.

Janna wanted Star to leave him the fuck alone! She wanted her to leave all of them the fuck alone! Wasn't this enough for her? Hadn't she hurt them enough?

Somehow, the arm wasn't growing back, not even a little. Tom could regenerate most injuries, Janna knew this first hand. But Star had done something to him, something he couldn't heal.

No. Star had tried to do something to her. That spell had been headed for Janna.

Well, originally, it had gone after the ghost.

But the ghost was also Star's fault! She created the creature, and in her attempt to kill it, she had almost killed Janna. She would have killed Janna. But Tom... 

Tom interfered. Why? He was no longer her pretend boyfriend. The witch had never imagined he would care about her this much, even back when he was. Then, why? Just why? Why did he have to do this!? The fucking idiot!

"Tom, calm down, it's ok, it's ok," she finally heard what Star was saying.

How dare she?

How fucking dare she!?

It was _not_ ok. He was never going to be ok, and it was all Star's own fault. 

"Get away from him!" Janna yelled, as she jumped up to her feet.

She should have known. No, she did know! She knew when they began this brain-dead tv-serial interrogation of theirs. She knew that it would turn badly. She knew, back in Sam's place, that Star was eventually going to get one of them killed or... maimed. That was what she had done now. Wasn't it? Got Tom's goddamn arm disintegrated. Crippled him forevermore! And she had the nerve to say that was ok?

"Janna?" the mewman looked at her with wide surprised eyes. "Oh god... I am so sorry..."

No, she wasn't, not nearly sorry enough. But she _would_ be.

Janna had been such an idiot. She knew something like this was bound to happen. She could have prevented it, back at Sam's place. Take his deal, have her and Tom walk away, forgetting they ever even knew who Star was. He would still have an arm then. Sam had said that she would kill Star if Janna accepted that deal. She should have just taken it! 

Well, that last part could still be fixed...

The witch extended the snake tattoo finger towards Star, and streams of blue lightning arched out of her hand towards the princess' body. They crackled through the air, only to be stopped mid air as the mewman turned around and raised yet another of her pink glitter shields.

"What the hell, Janna!?" Star yelled. She seemed angry. Angry at her for using magic against her. The goddamn barefaced hypocrite.

Sam had said he would kill Star. But, Janna realized, he _did_ kill Star. It was just that the devil had never intended it to be permanent. Well, now, she had other plans.

The witch closed her hand into a fist and, instead of lightning, a spear made of black ichor appeared in mid air and flung itself towards the princess' shield. It crashed through it like a canon ball through a glass window. Star simply danced out of the way behind it, leaving Tom's convulsing body down on the floor.

Now, Janna wasn't crazy, her attack missed the demon by a wide margin, whether the other girl was there or not. She wanted to help Tom, to protect him, and she knew just how to do that.

"Janna, please, calm down," Star pleaded, "What are you doing?"

"Saving us all from the Dark Queen Ascending!"

With a wave of her hand, a storm of azure arrows fell like hail on the mewman princess. But Star simply waved her wand, muttered one of her dumb spells, and Janna's magic attack was wasted on turning an incoming pod (or whatever!) of narwhals into pincushions. The creatures even reacted to it, crying as if they were actually hurt, actually alive. But it was all a charade, of course, mere constructs of Star's magic. Just one more way for Star to mock her. The princess had near limitless reserves of crude childish summons at her disposal, while Janna paid for every magic arrow with a sliver of her own immortal soul.

She tried to think whether she knew how to make Sam's magic suffocate the damn bug to death, to remove the air from her lungs, like he had done during their fight. Realizing that she couldn't do that, she opted for the next best thing. Thick ropes of translucent phantasmal darkness exploded out of her fingers, tying themselves around the mewman's wrists, ankles, and most importantly, her neck. Janna noticed that the tattoo was up to her own wrist. She didn't care. The shadow ribbons began to constrict. They had no heads, but they hissed like snakes.

"Ky-aah!" Marco shouted, as he cut the spectral ropes with a well placed karate chop. His body still glowed white, and the witch realized he could touch the immaterial, her own constricting spell included. "Janna, that's enough! Look, I know you are in shock, but you need to back the hell off!"

"Make me."

She twisted her hand and let the snake tattoo advance a few hundredths of an inch more. The intangible ribbons swiped left. They passed right through Star, and through the silver stairs. But Marco could touch ghosts, and so, the ribbons could touch him. They pushed him away. All the way away.

Janna threw him out of the floating staircase, and down into the pits of hell. He was almost as much to blame as Star was. He was the reason for the princess' dumb wish, the inciting cause behind that monster.

"Marco!?" Star cried, horrified, realizing what she had just lost. It was music to the witch's ears. What followed that... wasn't. 

"GLOWING DARKNESS HELLBLAST!"

Janna raised her arm in front of her. A wall of something she could only think of as a piece of firmament rose between herself and the mewman's deadly attack. It was a shadowy fog-like substance, filled with a billion dots of blue light. Star's spell didn't so much break against the barrier, as it faded into its deceptive depths: light-years of distance held within the span of a few feet. It was power like the human girl could before barely have imagined possible.

The troublemaker looked at her arm. She noticed with charing that she was elbow-deep in snake tattoo now. She had clearly overdone it with that last one. 

The magic wall faded not a second later but, fortunately, by then, Star was no longer focusing her spell on her.

The princess eyes were closed. Soon after, they opened up with a blinding violet glow exploding out of them, dismissing any semblance of human expression from her face. From the sides of her torso, two extra pairs of arms were quickly emerging. Behind her, six black and golden wings had begun to unfurl.

The witch knew that, even after her bargain, she could never win against a transformed Star. It was now or never.

Janna pushed back with her own wings, flying towards the mewman as fast as she could. She had to struggle to keep balance on her broken left wing. She closed her hand, THE hand, the snake tattoo hand, around Star's throat. She constricted her windpipe, pushing her thumb against the front of her neck, turning it into a piercing lance of force at the cost of even more of her soul. As she did so, she kept flying forward with the force of her own assault. They flew up one full flight of stairs, then the other. She was headed for the door out of hell, and she was taking the princess with her. Out of hell, and away from Tom.

The witch felt five strong arms grab hold of her, trying to push her away. She saw a glowing violet ball of fire, a living star, pressed up against her chest. The royal wand, held by the princess' remaining hand, was powering up for something. Janna asked Sam and all his hells for the strength to kill Star before she could cast another spell.

At that moment, they crossed the threshold of the portal, leaving the underworld behind.

\----

Marco fell.

He fell through the empty air. As soon as his body was more than a meter or two away from the silver staircase, the entire thing seemed to vanish into thin air: Star, Janna, Jackie, everyone gone. The portal was gone too. Just an empty door floating in the sky, one moment far below him, the next one far above.

He fell towards the dark waves below. If the other hells were any indication, touching the water would either dissolve him, freeze him to dead, or just alert the deep sea predators to come eat his body alive. And the worst thing was, he hadn't even been able to help Star. He hadn't been able to talk any sense into Janna. He had seen how mad his old childhood friend was, and how beyond fed up Star was with her in return. One of them was going to murder the other.

He hoped it was Star who did it. He felt horrible to even admit that to himself. But, after all, he could imagine a world without Janna. He couldn't imagine a world without Star.

The thing was, even if she won, Star would be devastated. She would feel terrible about killing her former friend. Besides, well, Marco was going to be dead soon too, right? That was probably not going to be a picnic for his best friend either. Fuck, he had failed her. Hadn't he? Not just failed to stop her fight with Janna, but he would fail to be there for her, even after all the times he swore to never leave her.

'Jackie, take care of Star for me, ok? She is going to need you. Sorry to both of you, for being such an...' he thought as he readied himself for the crash.

"Idiot!" shouted a voice above him. Marco opened his eyes to see a purple form falling behind him. No, not falling, diving down, head first, with his arms, no, with _an arm_ , pressed against his side. "Marco, I said: 'look up and hold on, you idiot'!"

Marco reacted as swiftly as he could under the circumstances, and reached for Tom's body in mid air. He literally scrambled towards him, and, almost by miracle, managed to hug his leg before the demon fell past him.

"What the hell, Tom! She threw you too!?" Marco shouted.

"Argh. No," Tom panted. "I jumped. Now hold on tight, Marco."

The Lucitor Prince turned around in mid air somehow, and pointed his remaining hand, the left one, down towards the water below.

"Don't fucking... ugh... dare let go," forced the demon.

A blast of fire exploded out of his palm, like the exhaust of a rocket. Marco was well clear of the blast itself, but the proximity heat alone felt like it would melt his skin. He still held on to Tom's leg. Even third degree burns would be better than certain death.

"Why? How?" he asked. "Tom, how did you get down here in time? Is Star ok? How about Jackie? Janna?"

"My... fucking... arm... is gone," Tom's eyes glowed bright like brazes. "I am in literally mind shattering amounts of pain right now, Marco! Argh! So don't ask any more fucking questions, ok!?"

Marco, quite reasonably, shut up.

"Wait, where are the... argh... damn stairs?" the demon prince asked, between pants and grunts.

"They are gone," Marco pointed out. "They are only there if you go through the doors, and if you fly too far away from them, they vanish. You were the one who explained that to us, remember?"

"What part of _mind shattering_ pain is not clear to you?!" Tom protested. "Fuck those stairs with the Astray One's Five Pricks!"

Swearing aside, the Lucitor prince angled his hand to push them towards the other side of the hovering door. With some difficulty, which Marco imagined was due to navigating using a single blast for thrust, the demon managed to drag both of their bodies through the floating black gates. They crashed against the solid cold metal of the staircase, among a bunch of random muffins and cupcakes.

"Crap! I... ugh... I thought I would only have to fly you all the way up..." Tom looked up at the stairs. He stumbled, barely able to walk after all that, let alone climb ten thousand stairs. "...We don't have time for this! We need to stop them."

"I know," replied Marco. He moved his hands as fast as he could, rushing through the words of the Fierceness Ritual.

"What are you doing!? Just run, I'll... arghhh! ... I'll try to keep up..." the demon yelled.

"No, Tom," Marco said, kneeling down. "My turn. Get on my back. It will be faster this way."

\----

Under normal circumstances, Tom would have felt quite uncomfortable taking a piggy back ride from Marco. It was just a plain out weird thing to do. Right now, he didn't care. His mind drifted in and out of consciousness. He had moved past pain, into a general state of numbness. But he couldn't rest, not until they got to Star and Janna. He tried to slap himself awake... then realized he no longer had the hand he had tried to use.

"Tom, sorry for the stupid question..." Marco spoke, as he ran up, carrying the demon, without slowing down one bit. "...but why did you jump after me rather than try to calm down Janna?"

"I... I didn't think... I just jumped..." he answered truthfully.

Marco groaned. He seemed about to say something, but held back. Tom recognized the signs of someone trying to control his own temper, by focusing their attention on some other mental task. Was Marco counting backwards?

The demon prince had been worried about Janna first, of course, and jumped in front of the deflected spell without thinking. Then, in his feverish state of agony, he had seen Marco fall, and had rushed after him as well. It was only half-way through falling that he processed what had happened and realized that they needed to get back up there as soon as possible, before either Star or Janna did something truly irreversible. 

Then again, if he hadn't jumped right when he did, Marco would have probably fallen to his doom. The carnivorous microbes of the hellish sea below would have turned him to bones in seconds. Not that the boy needed to know any of that now.

"Tom..." Marco said, quietly. "...thank you."

"Yeah, um, I... I guess I am kind of a hero now," reasoned Tom, half out-of-it.

Marco paused for a moment. Then, somewhat hesitantly, he said, "Yes. Yes you are, Tom."

"You were a big hero for sixteen years, weren't you?" he pressed. Not sure why he was thinking about that now. Or why they were talking. To keep awake, he guessed. 

There were still over three quarters of the stairs to go.

"I guess..." Marco responded.

"Does it always suck this much?" Tom asked.

There was a very long pause after that.

"Yeah... I think it does. I don't remember all of it but, from what I have seen, I'd say it sucks alright," Marco admitted, frustrated. "You still got a particularly shitty deal today, though, sorry... Hey, how about, once we reach them, you get in front of one of Janna's spells, and I catch the one from Star? That way we can compare notes."

It was a joke. It was also possibly their best actual plan to stop a fight between those two.

"Deal."

\----

Jackie woke up alone.

The left side of her face hurt particularly badly. Tentatively, she ran a finger over the burned skin. Ouch. It stung, a lot. She resolved to leave it alone for the time being. She had bruised her arm and legs against the stairs too. Nothing broken, it seemed, though. 

Alright, never mind that just now. She scrambled for the glass sword, feeling so much safer with the hilt in her hand. It all was quiet. She noticed the silence before she even registered the view: empty stairs.

What had happened? Had they won? Then, why would they leave her here?

She looked around, no sign of anyone else, burned metal, a pool of crimson blood. Blood? The green ghost creature didn't bleed. But this didn't look like human blood either. Star? Tom?

Had they lost? Oh god, they had lost! But then, why would the creature leave her alive? That made no sense! 

Well, it was supposedly opposed to killing her, as well as Star and Marco, even if they were never sure how far that preference truly went. But, even so, why would it take the other two away and not her? No, it still didn't add up... 

And, if it had killed any of them, there would be bodies, wouldn't there? Jackie thought she should have felt like puking at the mere thought of her friends, the people she loved, being dead, but she didn't. It was like her mind was too focused on trying to reconstruct the events to let herself be distracted by the horror, at least not yet.

She looked down through the edge of the staircase. True, the bodies could have been disposed that way. Either way, there was nothing she could see from up here but the dark unsettlingly calm ocean below.

She looked back to the stairs they had climbed. No. There was no reason for them to go back, not even when fleeing. If they had needed to escape, then Star would have surely summoned something that flew. And, well, she would have taken her too, she hoped. Star... Marco... where were they? None of the options made sense!

Then Jackie looked up, to the portal at the end of the stairs, to the swirling maelstrom of orange and gold. It was the path that seemed most reasonable. She didn't know why she had been left behind but, if they were alive, then that was the more logical path for Marco and the rest to follow. Either way, since she couldn't fly, well, it was her only way off these stairs...

\----

Star had to be fine, Janna too, they had to. Even if they were really fighting to the death, Star would be alright. She had survived the fight with Sam in the end, there was no way Janna could... The thought alone made Marco sick in his stomach. If she had so much as hurt Star, Marco was going to murder that fucking bitch!

Wait, no, crap, that was the stupid ritual talking. He needed the strength to carry Tom, to run up faster, to reach Star and Jackie and Janna, but he needed to keep calm too. Not a good idea to add yet another explosive temper to that mix. He was going up there to stop the fighting, not join it. He counted down from twenty. 

He was in control of the ritual's side-effects, not the other way around. As long as he remembered his mind was being affected, and focused on fighting those instincts back, he would be ok. It wasn't another personality, not some sort of cliched dark side, nor mind control, it was like, well, like his aggression was on a fucking hair trigger. But he just needed to remind himself that Star would be alright, that as long as he didn't mess up this time, all would be fine.

Star was tough, really really tough, there was no way anything too bad would happen to her, not once the emerald ghosts were gone. Janna would be ok, too. Star wouldn't really kill her, would she? Maybe she would just knock her out, or do her time freeze thing and restrain her? Maybe break a few of her bones, just to be sure... no, that was the ritual again. Marco shouldn't be thinking along those lines, and neither would the mewman.

Sure, Star had become a lot quicker to resort to lethal magics since her mom died. But, still, she wouldn't use those on a friend, even an estranged one, no matter what the troublemaker did. Would she? 

Then again, if she didn't, wasn't there a chance that Star herself might get hurt because of it? After all, if Janna had some of Sam's power, but Star couldn't fight her as freely as she fought Sam... Maybe it would actually be better if Star did let go. She could smash a damn mountain on the other girl or have a dragon eat her, see if that taught her not to throw Marco to his death! Maybe he ought to teach her that lesson! Ugh. Stupid ritual.

It wasn't just the ritual, though. The worry was driving Marco insane. It didn't help that this stairs seemed to go on forever, and that Tom had just passed out on his back. He couldn't blame the demon, of course. It was a testament to his willpower that he hadn't lost consciousness the moment the spell hit him. An arm. God. Marco had been cracking jokes about it for the sake of his friend, but he couldn't even begin to imagine what Tom was going through.

And he didn't have the time to imagine. There were still over one third of the stairs to go. He needed to channel all his magical strength, all his magical fury, into climbing those god damned stairs.

"Star!!" he growled, uselessly. He knew he was still too far away to be heard.

Something was happening to the sky. Instead of the feeble gray light that flowed over the place when they first arrived, it seemed to take on a bright reddish color. Maybe a sort of infernal dawn? 

No, it was still dark outside, it was only brighter in relative terms. Maybe they had been in the underworld for long enough to forget, but he thought he knew what the sun looked like, and this wasn't it. But then Marco realized that it was not just reddish: it was red. Blood red, in fact.

He looked up to see the round crimson form of the Blood Moon above the sky. He remembered Tom's words earlier that day: 'the Blood Moon appears to the lovers when one of them is in danger'.

He had to hurry. He had to reach Star.

\----

Jackie stood in front of the portal, wondering if she should step through the opaque swirling brightness. She guessed it was worth a try. At least to peek at the other side and double back if the others weren't there.

Her left cheek stung so much. She was seeing red, all around her. Wait, that wasn't from the pain or anything. Things were literally red, or at least illuminated by a red light.

She looked up.

The Blood Moon. 

Why? How? 

What was it trying to tell her? To go forward, or to stay back?

Well, she had been standing here for a while now, and waiting had never much been her style. She adjusted the nacre scabbard on her belt and held the glass rapier at the ready. She glanced one last time at the red celestial body in the hellish sky, and took one decisive step forward. 

'Marco, Star, I am coming after you, alright? Please be ok...'

At that moment, Jackie crossed the threshold of the portal, leaving the underworld behind.

\----

Marco ran up the stairs as fast as he could, holding onto Tom's unconscious body behind him, making sure he remained strapped to his back. He wasn't thinking. He wasn't planning. Even the fury of the ritual was not there anymore, subsumed by his dread of what he might find at the end of his desperate climb.

The silver stairs reflected the glowing red disc of the Blood Moon. An urgent warning for him to hurry up.

Then, suddenly, no more than a dozen flights away from his goal, it went away. A moribund grayness replaced it, as the normal light of the hellish dimension reasserted itself. Marco looked up and saw no moon in the empty sky.

He ran, if such a thing was possible, faster than he had been running before. He ran as if his life depended on it. Faster, even. Faster, because it was not really his life, after all, but Star's and Jackie's, and those were infinitely more precious to him.

Almost there, he was almost there, he was... there.

Marco turned around and saw, three flights up, the orange and gold swirling portal. He didn't stop then. One flight of stairs later, he saw the pool of Tom's blood. What he didn't see, unfortunatelly, was Star, or Jackie, or even Janna.

Tick. Tock.

He stopped there, confused.

Tick. Tock.

If they weren't here, that either meant they had also fallen down, or, more likely, they had gone through the vortex.

Tick. Tock.

Realization dawned on him like a sledgehammer. He raced towards the portal, not wasting a single additional second. But it was too late. Way too late.

Time in Hekapoo's dimension didn't flow the same way as it did on Earth or, presumably, in hell. Marco understood what that meant better than most people. He had once spent sixteen years there, while for Star, outside, only eight minutes had passed.

So, how long ago had the others gone through the portal? And, how long had it taken for Marco and Tom to climb back up the stairs? Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? A full hour? More?

The blood drained from Marco's face as he ran up the remaining two flights of stairs, not daring to pause even to breathe. He had to see it. He had to know. But, even if he went into the portal now, what difference did it make?

He flung himself through the whirlpool of golden and orange flames. Not a step, but a desperate leap.

At that moment, and not earlier, Marco crossed the threshold of the portal, leaving the underworld behind.

He landed on a mound of hard dry soil, his powerful muscular legs cushioning the fall. Large empty lungs drew air all at once into his toned chest. Sharp hunter eyes surveyed his surroundings. Old honed reflexes already stood prepared for an ambush.

On this end, there was no sign of the portal. All around him instead was a circle of rune-etched obsidian black monoliths and, beyond those, a forest of foreboding incredibly tall gray trees. They looked as if made of limestone, rather than living wood. Soot drizzled slowly but endlessly from an overcast morning sky.

He lowered Tom's sleeping body to the ground, carefully. The ritual's effect was gone, but it didn't matter. In his adult body, Marco was more than capable of carrying the demon boy's lanky form.

It was the same body Marco had when he was last here, the body he honed over sixteen years of chasing Hekapoo. Sixteen years of terror, and death, and war, and monsters, of countless terrible acts done to and by him. It was the body of that other Marco, the one in his dreams and hazy memories. It was Marco of Zonst, and Averx, and whatever the other place was.

Any other time, he would have been overjoyed to have this body back, if nothing else, to once again feel as powerful as he remembered feeling by the time he finished his scissors quest. But right now he couldn't muster the energy to care. Right now he didn't feel powerful at all. Right now he could only kneel down and sob.

There was no sign of Star, or Jackie, or Janna. But Marco hadn't expected there to be.

He was too late. Way way too late. Years too late. Decades too late.

If they had crossed the portal even two seconds ago, they could be as far as a month's march away from here by now.

If they had crossed between five and ten minutes before Marco reached the end of the stairs, then they would have lived through the same sixteen-years-long horror show that Marco had endured while chasing after Hekapoo, give or take five years or so.

And, if they had crossed the portal soon after he fell... then Star... and Jackie...

They were likely already long dead from old age.

\----

#### END of Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, kids, I think you all know the lyrics so... sing with me: 
> 
> _I think Earth is a pretty gre-at place..._ **;)**
> 
> Fun fact: This chapter contains more instances of the word "fuck" and its variations than any of the ones with actual sex scenes...
> 
> This concludes Part III. Unfortunately, there might be somewhat of a hiatus between this and the start of Part IV, since there are a lot of editing tasks on older chapters I have been postponing and a fair amount of planning for what comes next. In the mean time, hope you enjoy this little cliffhanger above. 
> 
> Love,
> 
> APW
> 
>  _And when we finally get back, the most likely place to start will be:_ **Chapter 31: The Once and Future Me**


End file.
